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WALTER SAYLER. 

ATTORNEY RT LS¥, 
EATON, OHIO. 



PRICE, ONE DOLLAR 

SEND TO THE AUTHOR. 



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DAYTON, OHIO: 
United Brethren Publishing House, 

1880. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, 

BY WALTER- SAYLER, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. I>. C. 



DEDICATION 



Jo J% JhOm'. 



PREFACE. 



My objects in writing: this book were to gain notoriety, advertise 
my business, and make some money. 

However, it is said that money is the "root of all evil;" yet those 
who have lived in this world as long as I have know that it is difficult 
to get along without it. 

I beg to say that I am under many obligations to Prof. W. F. 
Harper for the able contributions which he has made. 

Hoping it will meet with a ready sale, I submit it to the 
public. 

Walter Sayleb. 

Eaton, Ohio, May, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE, 

Josephine Bonaparte, ------ y 

The Most Thrilling Event in American History, - - 13 

Byron, Burns, and Moore, - - - - - 19 

Mans Inhumanity to Man, - - - - -23 

A Rocky Mountain Sunset, ----- 27 

The Past is gone, the Future is here, - - - '.19 

The Wars of the Roses, ..... 35 

Marriages of Great Men, - - - - - 37 

Youthful Error and Mature Wisdom, - - - 41 

Aaron Burr, - - - - "■ - -45 

A Lonely Death -bed, . - - - - 53 

The Triumphs of Peace, - - - - - - 51) 

" Great Men have no Continuance," . - * - &> 

The Last Single Captive, - - • - - - 67 

The Downfall of Nations, .... - 71 

Cultivation of the .Esthetical Faculty, - - - - 81 

The Nebular Hypothesis, - . • - - - ■ 87 

A Feast of Eloquence, - - - - - - 93 

Napoleon III., ..... 9 J 

An Historical Relict, - - - -■ - " H3 

The Fate of the Earth, - • • - - 117 
American Literature, ...--- 121 

The Drama, the Stage, and the Pulpit, - - - 127 

Educated in a Normal, * - - - * - 13b 

Friends in Misfortune, ..... 137 

Words Upon Dying Lips, - - - - * -141 



Josephine Bonaparte. 



Of all the great women that have ever lived, there 
are none, perhaps, who have attracted so much atten- 
tion as Josephine Bonaparte. 

This noted woman was born upon the Island of 
Martinique, which rears forth in tropical luxuriance 
from the bosom of the Caribbean Sea. Here mount- 
ains rear their lofty heads to meet the coming of the 
morning sun ; valleys charm the eyes with pictures 
more beautiful than the imagination can create; and 
people loiter life away in listless leisure and rustic 
luxary, unconscious of the affluence of Europe and 
America. When Josephine was young her parents 
died, and her aunt took her to raise. From child- 
hood until the hour of her death, she was ever im- 
proving her mind by careful observation and studious 
reading. She played upon the harp with great skill, 
and sung w 7 ith a voice of exquisite melody ; and her 
cheerful spirit seldom failed her, even in the darkest 
days of her calamity. 

Under such influences, Josephine became a child of 

such grace, beauty, and loveliness as to attract the at- 

tention and admiration of all who saw her. 

9 



10 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Her most intimate friend was a negro girl two or 
three years older than herself. 

Josephine was about fourteen years of age when a 
French officer, by the name of Alexander de Beau- 
harnais, came to visit her uncle upon business of im- 
portance. He fell in love with Josephine, and after 
a short courtship they were promised to be married. 
With tears in her eyes and a saddened heart, she bid 
adieu to the land of her birth and the scenes endeared 
to her by all the recollections of childhood, to live in 
one of the proudest cities of the old world. When 
they reached Paris, Beauharnais, proud of her beauty 
and accomplishments, introduced her at court. 

Marie Antoinette, who had then just ascended the 
throne of France and was in the brilliancy of her 
youth, was charmed with the West Indies bride. 

When these two young brides met in the regal pal- 
ace of Versailles, — one the daughter of Maria Theresa, 
a descendant of the Caesars, who had come from the 
court of Austria, not only to be the queen but the 
brightest ornament in the court of France, the other 
the child of a poor planter, born upon an obscure isl- 
and, reared in the midst of negroes and n egresses as 
almost her only companions, — little did they think that 
Marie Antoinette was to go down, down, down to the 
lowest depths of ignominy and woe, and that Josephine 
was to ascend to more and more exalted positions 
until she should sit upon a prouder throne than the 
Csesars ever knew. 

She had two children, Hortense and Eugene. 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 11 

Beauharnais left lier and took Eugene with him. 
Josephine then returned to Martinique, where she 
passed her time in educating Hortense. She said she 
would spend the remainder ot her days on the island 
were it not for the love she bore for Eugene. Her 
friends tried to persuade her to remain on the island, 
but a mother's undying love for a child triumphed, 
and she again embarked for France. 

The common people of France had obtained an en- 
tire victory over monarchy and aristocracy ; had be- 
headed the king and queen, and drove the noblemen 
from the realms. 

France was now divided into two great parties, 
called the Jacobins and the Girondists. 

The Jacobin party obtained control, and most of the 
leaders of the other party — and among them Beau- 
harnais — were led to the guillotine. This left Jose- 
phine a widow ; but she was soon again entwined in 
the arms of matrimony. 

Her attention was soon directed toward that little 
Corsican general, Napoleon, the day-star of whose 
fame was just beginning to rise over the moldering 
ruin of Tourin. In the year 1796 they were married, 
aud from that time on she lived a stormy life. 

On the second day of December, 1802, she was 
crowned empress of France. On the fifteenth day of 
December, 1809, she was divorced. On the twenty- 
niuth day of May, 1814, while a tranquil summer's 
day was fading away into a cloudless, serene, and beau- 
tiful evening; while the rays of the setting sun, strug- 



12 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

gling through the foliage of the open window, shone 
gently on the bed where the dyiug empress lay; while 
the vesper songs of the birds, which filled the grove of 
Malmaison, floated sweetly upon the air, the gentle 
spirit of Josephine, lulled to repose by these sweet 
anthems, prepared its pinions for its final flight to 
brighter climes. The last word she spoke was 
".Napoleon." 

Alexander, the czar of Russia, as he gazed upon 
her lifeless remains, burst into tears, and uttered the 
following affecting yet just tribute of respect to her 
memory: "She is no more. That woman whom 
France named the beneficent, that angel of goodness, 
is no more. Those who have known her can never 
forget her. She dies regretted by her offspring, her 
friends, and her contemporaries." 

In a little grave-yard at Ruel, marked by a beautiful 
monument of white marble, representing the queen in 
her coronation robes, erected by Hortense and Eu- 
gene, reposes the dust of Josephine Bonaparte. 



The Most Thrilling Event 

IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 



In the year 1775, when our countrymen were 
writhing beneath the oppressive heel of British tyran- 
ny; when all the principal cities of our land were 
thronged with English soldiers, sent here to bind and 
rivet upon us those chains which the English parlia- 
ment were constantly forging; when the idiotic king 
of Great Britain — disregarding every sentiment of 
honor, every notion of humanity, every principle of 
morality, — was sacrificing his brethren in America to 
the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the merciless 
savage, the thrilling cry resounded through the air 
that some of our countrymen had already fallen on 
the morning of the nineteenth of April, at Lexington, 
Massachusetts. Suddenly, as if emanating from the 
bosom of the very earth, crowds of armed men filled 
all the roads and highways leading to the scene of 
action. "The steed, the mustering squadron, and the 
clattering car went pouring forth with impetuous 
speed, and swiftly forming in the ranks ot war." 
What could be more thrilling? Yet this could not 
covet the claims to superiority. 

13 " 



14 GExMS OF LITERATURE. 

On the beautiful morning of the fourteenth of 
April, 1776, when our countrymen were groaning 
under burdens of taxation that weighed them almost 
to the ground ; when every business occupation of the 
land was in a state of languor; when the bright sun, 
rising to his course, lighted up a race of slaves, and dis- 
appearing over the western hills, shed his last beams 
on the slaves — not the conquered subjects of a victo- 
rious general, but the oppressed brethren of an unfeel- 
ing despot; when every petition or remonstrance 
seemed only to bind their chains more closely, the 
members of the Continental Congress assembled in 
Independei ce Hall at Philadelphia. 

For what purpose did they assemble? Was it to 
bow themselves in senseless homage before a glisten- 
ing diadem, placed with all its attributes of tremen- 
dous power on the head of one as weak, as blind, as 
mortal as themselves? Was it in honor of a victory 
achieved on the crimsom field of war? Was it to 
commemorate the accomplishments of a vain revolu- 
tion which but substitutes one dynasty of tyrants for 
another? All these lie at an infinite depth below that 
which convened them there. No glittering display of 
military pomp and pride allured them hither. They 
met to inaugurate one of the grandest events that 
ever constituted an epoch in the political history of 
mankind ; namely, to enter on the grand experiment 
of personal freedom, happiness, and prosperity. To 
such men as oppose these rights of man, the very 
name of experiment is a sound of horror. It is a spell 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 15 

which conjures up Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire. 
They seem not to know that all which is valuable in 
life, that the acquisition of learning, the discoveries 
in science, and the refinement of art> are but the 
results of experiment. We should not be afraid to 
follow Reason, however far she may diverge from the 
h *aten paths of opinion. 

All the inventions which embellish life, all the dis- 
coveries which enlarge the field of human happiness, 
are but the results of that bold experimental exercise 
of that one distinguishing attribute of man. The 
result of that day is now before mankind. Not in the 
■embryo form of doubtful experiment, not as the mere 
theory of visionary statesmen, not as the treacherous 
schemes of ambitious politicians, nor the mad projects 
of hot-brained rebels ! It is before us in the beautiful 
maturity of established fact, attested by one hundred 
and three years of national experience, and watched 
throughout its course by an admiring world. What 
^vent could have been more exciting to the people of 
that generation? Yet that should not covet the 
claims to superiority. 

In 1861, when that despised palmetto flag w T aved 
over every fortification in the south, except Fort 
Sumter, near Charleston, and Fort Dickens, near 
Pensacola, Major Anderson was in command at Fort 
Sumter with seventy men. He beheld the erecticn 
of batteries around the fort, but did not resist, and by 
the first of April the supply of provisions in the 
l)eleagured fort were nearly gone. 



16 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

On the eleventh of April, General Beauregard, \n 
command of the southern forces, being informed that 
an attempt would be made to throw supplies and re- 
enforcements into the fort, sent a demand to Major 
Anderson to vacate the place aud turn it over to the 
authorities of South Carolina. This Major Anderson 
refused to do. 

At half past four o'clock on the morning of the 
twelfth of April, the first shot was fired from Fort 
Moultrie; and now began the battle of seven thousand 
men on one side and seventy on the other. The firing 
( continued all day long; and on the next day the 
wood-work of Fort Sumter was set on fire, and the 
men were compelled to abandon the firing and arrest 
the flames. At twelve o'clock the whole roof was 
on fire, and they expected the magazine to explode 
at any moment. Worn out with constant labors, suf- 
focated, and almost blinded with the sulphur-smoke, 
and surrounded on all sides by foes that were con- 
stantly increasing, this bruve garrison, unable to resist 
any longer, saluted the flag with three round cheers r 
then, taking it down, departed. 

The electric fires flash over the wires, communi- 
cating this thrilling intelligence to the world. From 
the rock-bound coast of the Atlantic to the goldpn 
gates of the Pacific there is a gloomy silence, like the 
silence of nature before the terrors of a storm, and 
disturbed only by the thousand-fold rattling of mus- 
ketry, with which men were imbuing their hands in 
the reeking blood of those who had rocked their 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. IT 

cradles. How signal was the effect ! Over the great 
trunk-lines of railway which connect one end of the 
continent to the other, the rattling car went pouring 
forth with impetuous speed, carrying men to the field 
of conflict. What could be more exciting? Yet this 
should not covet the claim to superiority. 

On the night of the fourteenth of April, 1865, 
when the patriotic people of the North were rejoicing 
in the triumph of right over wrong; when the 
wearied soldiers of the long and bloody war were en- 
joying the peaceful firesides of their beloved homes ? 
when the whole air seemed to vibrate with the accla- 
mations- of victory; when bereaved mothers and 
widows were mourning the loss of those whose 
white bones lay bleaching under the rays of a tropical 
clime; when the shackles of slavery were falling from 
the bleeding limbs of three millions of human beings ; 
when the genius of human liberty was chanting the 
wailing requiem of the defeated confederates as they 
homeward bent their weary way ; when the dulcet 
sound of the word peace fell upon the ears of the 
American people with a peculiar and indescribable 
charm like the gentle murmur of a low fountain steal- 
ing forth beneath a bed of roses, or like the soft, sweet 
accents of an angel whispering in the bright, joyous 
dream of sleeping innocence; when the genius of 
human slavery was chanting the wailing requiem, the 
proudest nationality the world has ever seen, as they 
scattered their withered and tear-moistened lilies over 
the bloudv tomb of the butchered South, Abraham 



18 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, 
passed from the trials and tribulations of this life 
into the blisstul repose of eternal sleep. 

How is the mighty fallen? He beneath whose 
proud footsteps secession trembled ; he who control- 
led the destiny of a nation, and put to flight its resist- 
less foes, now lies powerless — still in death. 

On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwont- 
ed fury up to the throne of the only power that could 
control him while on this earth, went the fiery soul of 
that mighty man. This event, above all others, we 
crown with the laurels of victory. 



/ 



Byron, Burns, and Moore. 



In that bright galaxy of poets which threw such a 
radiance of glory over the last and present centuries, 
Byron, Burns, and Moore stand like the towering 
oaks among the ancient forests. 

Their poems are cherished, admired, and loved by 
the brightest literary lights of the present age. In 
their genius they represented, as well as their verse 
illustrated, the three great states which compose the 
British empire, and which have been broken otf from 
the mainland in a great length of time by the powers 
of the restless waters. 

The harp of Erin was never so well tuned, its lays 
never so enchantingly sung, nor its music so soft and 
sweet, as when played by the hand of Moore. 

The peculiar genius of the Scottish dialect reuder 
its verse ULsystematic and harsh ; its music in dis- 
cord flows; its expressions grind the tympanum, but 
Burns immortalized it in cadences that will live as 
long as the sweetest songs of Homer, the loftiest 
flights of Milton, or the graudest eloquence of Shakes- 
peare. 

Byron found new sources of wealth in English 

. 19 



20 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

literature, which had been explored by the most 
searching minds that have ever lived, and the beauty 
of its verse clothed in the purest gems of thought. 

The lives and fortunes of these poets are enshroud- 
ed in a halo which creates an interest in their admir- 
ers as painful and melancholy as the verse is beautiful 
and charming, and in perusing them our attention is 
divided between the brilliancy and the misfortunes 
and infirmities of genius. 

Byron and Burns both fell where manhood's morn- 
ing almost touches noon, and while shadows still were 
falling toward the West. They were, respectively, 
thirty-six and thirty-seven years of age. 

Moore lived to hear the songs of grandchildren 
that cheered his weary way on the downward path of 
life. But long before his spirit prepared its pinions 
for its final flight to brighter climes, he was struck 
down with disease that destroyed his bright faculties, 
and extinguished that talent that had shone so splen- 
didly in the brighest realms of thought. 

Moore was born in 1779, Byron in 1786, and Burns 
in 1759. 

It was t]he misfortune of the latter that he was not 
born twenty years later, when his remarkable genius 
would have been more highly appreciated, and a hap- 
pier fortune attended him. As it was, the brilliancy 
of his talents were hidden in a small and limited dis- 
trict of Scotland and did not rise into great eminence 
until after his death. It seems extraordinary that so 
world-renowned a poet never visited London, nor any 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 21 

of the large English cities, and had but a slight ac- 
quaintance with the principal men of his country. 

Moore received for his writings over $100,000, 
and Byron obtained for his copyrights some $75,000, 
while the distinguished author of the Cottager's Satur- 
day Night, and other poems not inferior in merit or 
beauty, received the pitiful sum of $4,500. But had 
he only lived a few years later, when the great Beviews 
of Edinburg and London had sprung into existence, 
he, too, might have lived to see his name encircled in 
a blaze of glory, as were his rivals. 

The age in which we live makes a poor comparison 
in literary or political genius and talent with that of 
half a century ago. We are distinguished for works 
of practical utility, for improvements in the mechan- 
ical arts and sciences; but in the imaginative branch 
of literature there has been a lamentable falling off, 
as well as in that talent which directs the destinies of 
nations. 

It will be a long time before the world will behold 
a Washington and Napoleon as contemporaries, and it 
may be longer still before such persons as Byron, 
Burns, Moore, Scott, Southey, and others are explor- 
ing the fields of literature and flying in the realms of 
fancy to the highest plane of genius. 



Mm's Inhumanity to Mm. 



Who can glance cursorily even over the blood- 
stained pas:es of history and not feel an involuntary 
shudder at " Man's inhumanity to man/' as it has 
been practiced in all ages? 

That bloody deed of Cain, in the pasturage near 
Eden, is but one of an innumerable number that 
have been faithfully recorded by heaven's scribe in 
the book of God's remembrance. The sheep that 
owned the righteous Abel as their shepherd may have 
fled in terror from the spot where Cain lifted his arm, 
nerved with murderous purpose, to commit the dark 
deed; but quite as dark deeds as have ever been re- 
corded in the book of heaven have been committed 
in this disordered world. 

Nation has been arrayed against nation, tribe 
against tribe, family against family, man against man. 
Extensive wars have been carried on in the world, 
which have resulted in 3trewing the earth with slain, 
and thus national existence has been sapped as the 
lite-blood of a nation's warriors has crimsoned the 

4 

beautiful carpet. Yes, in war the desolating armies 
have destroyed everything beautiful before them. 

23 



24 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Their battering-rams have played upon the walls of 
their enemies, and they have brought a gloom of im- 
pending darkness to the human family. 

Look at the history of our world for a moment. 
Through the dynasties of the ancient Egyptian em- 
pire, from the first Pharaoh to the infamous Cleopatra, 
it is nothing but one continuous scene of bloodshed. 
Of the Babylonian empire it is also true throughout 
its whole history, from the time it was founded as an 
empire, and the first monarch reigned, until the Per- 
sian conquerer executed the decree of Heaven by en- 
tering her capital, putting her king to death, and 
proclaiming the empire free, and her captives free and 
at liberty to return to their homes. The same is true 
of the Medo-Persiau, Macedonian, and Roman em- 
pires; their rise, progress, and fall was in blood. And 
is it not also true of modern nations? It was said of 
the great Napoleon Bonaparte that" he clothed the 
earth with the terror of his name, and drenched all 
Europe in blood and tears." This world of ours has 
been a war world ever since the great Napoleon closed 
his eyes in death on the barren St. Helena, and two 
of the bloodiest pages in the history of the world are 
those wherein are recorded the wars of the Crimea 
and the duke of Alva in the Low Country. No pen 
can describe, no painter sketch, no imagination com- 
prehend the untold cruelties practiced in those wars. 
But I am glad to believe that in our own country the 
people are beginning to learn that war and rumors of 
war should cease; glad to believe that no more the 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 25 

thirsty entrance of this soil shall daub her lips with 
her own children's blood ; no more shall trenching 
war channel her fields, nor bruise her flowerets with 
the armed hoofs of hostile paces. Those opposed 
eyes, which, like the meteor of a troubled heaven, all 
of one nature, of one substance bred, did lately meet 
in the intestine shock, and forever closed in civil 
butchery, shall now in mutual and well-beseeching 
ranks march all one way, and be no more opposed 
against acquaintance and kindred allies. 

The edge of war, Jike an ill-sheathed knife, no 
more shall cut his master. 



A Rocky Mountain Sunset. 



This is a beautiful world in which we live. If I 
were endowed with divine intelligence I can not con- 
ceive of one iota of improvement that I could make 
upon Nature. I can conceive of no color so beautiful 
for the grass as green ; no color so beautiful for the 
sky as its deep azure blue; no color that would add 
such purity to the waters as their living light of 
green. The hills are just high enough, the valleys 
just deep enough, the plains just broad enough, and 
the rivers just long enough to make this one of the 
most beautiful worlds that floats through the bound- 
less wilderness of space. But would you behold 
something more beautiful and grander than all this, 
go and see a Rocky Mountain sunset. Here Nature 
draws upon the brightest colors in the firmament of 
heaven, and blends them together more artistically 
than the hand of art will ever be able to acquire. 
Behold the setting sun from a snow-capped peak of 
the Rockies, its cheering rays flooding all the orient 
with gold, and clothing the Switzerland of America 
in robes of green and purple. Standing there, you 
behold the vast prairies reaching as far as the eve can 

27 



23 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

carry; the golden harvests waving above the clouds 
of war; the prairie-fires looming in the distance like 
the beacon-lights'of the day of judgment ; vast herds 
of buffalo roaming and romping over the boundless 
fields of waving grass. The sweet songs of the vil- 
lagers are floating gently upon the evening air; the 
waters come trickling down the mountain side, form- 
ing rivulets, rooks, and branches, and thence winding 
their weary way to the sea; the smoke from the 
chimneys of the earth rise high into the gealed 
air; all Nature is arrayed in her brightest robes of 
beauty ; the fields of waving grass, and earth's vel- 
vety carpet of green, present a picture far more im- 
pressing than a Michael Angelo or a Raphael ever 
conceived. Presently the last ray of light has kissed 
the mountain-top and passed beneath the wave. 

Listen? What noise is that? Behold a vast herd 
of buffaloes with their heads down, their eyes glaring, 
their nostrils dilated, their tougues out, and their tails 
curled over their backs, tearing along with a hundred 
Indians on their grass-bellied ponies yelling at their 
heels! On they come, and as they sweep past an- 
other band of Indians, they, too, join in the chase; 
and away they all go, rippling, bellowing, running, 
and tearing, amid clouds of dust, until they disappear 
in the dim distance, never to return again. 

Such, briefly told, is what may be seen on a 
Rocky Mountain peak just as the sun is sinking 
beneath the western horizon. 



TmePust is gone, the Future is here. 



The knell of a departing year is tolled to-day. A 
few hours more and it will be numbered with the 
irrevocable past, and take its place in history. It 
seems but a marvelously short time since it com- 
menced, yet it is fraught with the greatest events to 
the human family. 

As we pause for a moment on the threshold of the 
old year, and allow our memories to revert back, we 
are deeply impressed with the rapidity of its flight 
into eternity, carrying with it in its tremendous sweep 
millions of the human family. To the reflecting and 
intelligent mind, there is something saddening in the 
thoughts which to-day will force themselves upon us, 
reminding us as it does, that we, too, are mortal, and 
that soon the draperies of death will be bound around 
us, and we will only live in the minds of those who 
knew and loved us. Time bears to man the same 
relation that eternity does to the infinite Creator. 
It measures and defines the little span of life, which 
we occupy between the cold and barren peaks of two 
eternities. 

29 



30 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Ere another thirty -first of December rolls around, 
many of us will have joined that innumerable caravan 
which is now moving to the pale realms of shades 
and shadows. The seasons wait for no man in their 
unvarying successions. No prayers that woman can 
offer, no tears that man can shed, can arrest the De- 
stroyer from gathering his harvests of death. 

The proudest works of man, upon which the hand 
of Art has played for ages and ages, perish beneath 
the mighty tread of Time. True that Alexander con- 
quered every nation upon the face of the earth, and 
kings fell upon their knees and worshiped him, Napo- 
leon drenched all Europe in blood and tears, and 
filled the land with woe, but when lime said, " Listen 
to my command," they hung their sabers upon the 
clouds of war and acknowledged, "Now we are con- 
quered." 

Where are the cities of Carthage, Tyre, Babylon, 
and Nineveh, once the capitals of the world, the em- 
poriums of commerce, the great marts of ancient civ- 
ilization, which but a few centuries ago gave corn* 
mand to the armies of the earth ? The iron hoofs of 
civilization are treading above their moldering ruins. 
Time is more effectual in the work of destruction 
than all the other agencies of Omnipotence put 
together. 

The passions, the vices, and the crimes of man must 
yield the palm in this respect to the great Destroyer. 
Walls maybe built that will turn aside the sweeping 
avalanches; engines may be constructed that would 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. 31 

put to flight the fires of the internal earth ; yet when 
Time seizes it with his relentless might its work is 
done. 

Man may have the loftiest aspiration for ambition; 
he may seek to win the highest prize within the gift 
of any people; yet if he is not quick and careful, 
Time, noiselessly and imperceptibly, will sap the 
foundations and overthrow the monuments of his 
human pride, which he expected to leave as testi- 
monials of his existence. The ancient kings of 
Egypt, who erected the mighty pyramids by means of 
mechanism unknown to modern science and civiliza- 
tion, which have been the wonder of the world in all 
ages since, fondly hoped that the inscription of their 
names, which were engraved upon them, would ren- 
der them immortal. But the ravages of time have 
seized them, and to-day they are as ineffectual to sub- 
serve the end 8 intended as if they had been written 
in the sands upon the sea-shore when the tide was 
rolling in. 

While we are meditating upon these great muta- 
tions, we must remember also that Time changes 
youth into age, strength into feebleness, beauty into 
ugliness, annihilates all distinctions by his remorseless 
scythe, and lays everything low in one common icy 
grave. Although he lays his hand gently upon all he 
touches, yet it has a crushing weight that none can 
resist, no matter how mighty or potent. 

When we look around upon the physical construc- 
tion of this earth, and behold the changes wrought 



32 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

even in our own life-time, we can arrive at some idea 
of what will be the effects of time in eternity. 

The year 1900 will soon dawn upon the world. 
JBut how few among the present generation will live 
to see it ushered in ! The grave will have swallowed 
up nearly all of those who are now participating in 
the active concerns of business of life. Society, in 
all its various relations, — political, moral, and social, — 
will have undergone an entire and total change in 
those who direct and govern it. The present age will 
have passed into history, and the bustling millions of 
the twentieth century will refer to its deeds of cruel- 
ty, its acts of justice, its notions of humanity. Upon 
all those monuments which are now so interesting to 
us, — the telephone, the audiphone, the microphone, — 
they will only bestow a passing thought; and many 
of the prominent men of this generation who fondly 
imagine that they have gained a lasting immortality 
will only be known by those who caressed and loved 
them, except now and then an industrious student or 
an antiquarian, searching through the dusty books of 
some old library, may chance to see his name. 

Time teaches impressive and solemn lessons to the 
devotees of human pride and ambition which it is 
well to recall. It is calculated, as its volume of the 
past is spread out before us, to render man much less 
exalted in his own ideas of self-importance, and clip 
his soaring anticipation of future renown. 

To nearly all of the human family the end of time 
is earthly oblivion. You may think that you have 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. 33 

won a lasting reputation, that your name will shine 
through coming generations as the only light by 
which the toddling feet of a mighty nation was once 
guided, yet when the dark, deep, still waters of time 
shall encircle that name, like the rings of Saturn, it 
will grow dimmer and dimmer still, and finally disap- 
pear like a falling star, never to rise again. 



The Wars of the Roses. 



This world of ours has been a war- world ever since 
Cain gave that wicked precedent in- the beginning of 
human history. But of all the wars which history 
feigns to tell there are none perhaps that presentsuch 
a scene of horror, of woe, and death, as the " Wars 
of the Hoses." These wars, which lasted over thirty 
years, were brought about principally by the disputed 
title of Edward IV. to the throne of England, — his 
accession to the throne being protested against by the 
see of Home for being an illegitimate child. 

When Edward ascended the throne he saw there 
was a field of bloodshed and slaughter before him; 
but he was brave, heartless, energetic, and ambitions, 
and would stoop to the meanest things imaginable in 
order that he might wear the glistening diadem. 

A party called the Lancastrians opposed Edward 
and upheld the cause of Henry, who they claimed to 
be the rightful heir to the crown. The Lancastrians 
chose the red rose in contradistinction to the other 
party called the Yorkists which chose the white. 

The followers of Henry had collected in great num- 
bers near. the town of York. 

35 



36 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

The followers of Edward saw no other way to abate 
the difficulties than to meet them in deathless conflict* 
Accordingly, in the year 1461, on a wild, blustering 
day of March, while the freezing cyclones were driv- 
ing the drifting snows from the upper regions over 
all Europe, those two great armies met in bloody con- 
test near the town of Taunton. The battle raged 
furiously all day long, and ere the evening shades 
appeared the white rose was seen to bloom and blos- 
som over the bloody field of war. But again did the 
red rose climb and twine over the broken cannon of 
war; and again did the white rose smother it down, 
causing the rills, the rivulets> and the brooks to run red 
with the noblest blood of England. But the seeds of 
the Red Rose were sown in fertile soil, and they were 
destined to yield an abundant harvest. They would 
spring up as with the hand of spontaneity ; and for 
thirty long years these Roses thirsted for the blood 
of each other, like the hart panteth for the water- 
brooks. But ere the close of the one score and ten 
years, the White Rose had been dipped in English 
blood so often that it began to be striped with red. 

Finally, they both went down together again 
beneath the horse's hoof and the cannon's smoke, 
and when the sky was cleared again, naught was 
seen save the Red Rose, which gained the victory 
over all. 



Marriages of Great Men, 



We are afraid that "wives of men of genius" 
have not been happily mated. It is our decided opin- 
ion, deduced from history and observation, that men 
of genius do not make good husbands. On the con- 
trary, they are very poor and inferior husbands, and 
their wives live unpleasant lives. 

Domestic happiness requires a certain amount of 
worldly tact and knowledge in which "gentlemen of 
genius" are sadly deficient. If Nature gives a man 
a splendid intellect, she generally withholds a corre- 
sponding amount of moral and domestic qualities 
which are essential to happiness. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, renowned alike as an 
orator, dramatist, politician, and wit, may be called a 
genius. One day his venerable aiid respected father 
asked him why he did not reform and get married, 
and take unto himself a good wife. He asked 
"whose wife he should take." 

Byron married Miss Millbank to get money to pay 
his debts. It turned out a bad shift. 

Robert Burns married a farmer's girl, with whom he 
fell in love while they worked together in the field. 

37 



38 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

He was irregular in bis habits, and committed the 
most serious mistakes in conducting his domestic 
affairs. 

Milton married the daughter of a country squire, 
but lived with her but a short time. He was an 
austere, exacting literary recluse, while she was a 
rosy, romping country lass that could not endure the 
restraint imposed upon her; so they separated. Sub- 
sequently, however, she returned, and they lived tol- 
erably happy together. 

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were cousins, 
and about the only example in the long line of En- 
glish sovereigns wherein the marital vows were 
sacredly kept and sincere affection existed. 

Shakespeare loved and wedded a farmer's daughter. 
She was faithful to her vows; but we can hardly say 
the same of the great bard. Like most great poets, 
he showed too little discrimination in bestowing his 
affections on the other sex. 

Washington married a woman with two children. 
It is enough to say that she was worthy of him ; and 
they lived as married folks should live, in perfect har- 
mony. 

John Adams married the daughter of a Presbyteri- 
an clergyman. Her father objected on account of 
John being a lawyer. He had a bad opinion of the 
morals of the profession. 

John Howard, the great philanthropist, married hia 
nurse. She was altogether beneath him in social life 
and intellectual capacity; and besides this, she was 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. 39 

fifty-two years old while he was but twenty-five. He 
would not take "no" for an answer, so they were 
married, and lived happily together until her death, 
which occurred two years afterward. 

Peter the Great, of Russia, married a peasant girl. 
She made an excellent wife and sagacious empress. 

Humboldt married a poor girl because he loved her. 
Of course they were happy. 

It is not generally known that Andrew Jackson 
married a woman whose husband was still living. 
She was an uneducated but amiable woman, and was 
most devotedly attached to the warrior and states- 
man. 

John C. Calhoun married his cousin ; and their 
children, fortunarely, were neither insane or idiotic, 
but they do not evince the talent of the u great state' s- 
right advocate." 

Edward Lytton Bulwer, the English statesman and 
novelist, married a girl much his inferior, and got a 
shrew for a wife. She is now insane. 

Napoleon Bonaparte sacrificed his wife, and crushed 
the dearest ties that ever bound two lovers together, 
in order to gratify a selfish scheme of political ambi- 
tion. 

Sir Walter Scott was certainly a helpmate not ap- 
preciated by his spouse. On one occasion she said 
she would have to get her husband to write some 
more " nonsense" in order to get money enough to 
buy a new carpet. Only think of " nonsense" as ap- 
plied to Waverly Novels. 



40 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Many of our greatest literary men have seemed to 
recognize their unfitness to have wives by never 
taking any. One of the worst disadvantages which 
"genius" has to encounter in the enjo3 r ments of do- 
mestic happiness arises from a want of pecuniary 
funds, for, say what one will, "when want flies in 
at the door love flies out at the window." 

Literary genius is not remunerated as it should be. 
Milton sold the copyright of "Paradise Lost" for 
twenty- five dollars. 

Seven cities contend to-day as being the birthplace 
of Homer, while every one of them denied him 
bread when living. 

Our advice to women who want to get married is 
that you had better marry a poor man and live in a 
"lonely cottage by the sea," and have peace in your 
family, than to marry a man of "genius" and live in 
a "palace on the hill " and continually feel the shock 
of family dissensions. 



Youthful Error 1 Mature Wisdom. 



There are many young men, when about the time 
of leaving college, who consider it very wise to attack 
religion and sneer at its teachers and advocates. 
They especially delight in painting out imagined in- 
consistencies in the Bible, talk about the mistakes of 
Moses, and criticise its morality and lives of its 
patriarchs and saints. With many, if not the most of 
them, this is the result of mental eccentricity, which 
leads them to suppose that by rendering their ideas 
conspicuous they will acquire a notoriety which will 
lead to their success in life. Others suppose that 
there is a fascinating originality about it, not 
knowing that for hundreds of years weak and ill-dis- 
ciplined youths have indulged in the same practice. 
As these youths become older, know more, and see 
more of the world, they abandon their attacks upon 
religion, and, even if they do not change their views, 
they cease publicly to express them. There is noth- 
ing more preposterous than attacks upon religion, 
even in a temporal point of view. Whether true or 
not, it can not be dispensed with in the temporal gov- 
ernment and organization of society. Its teachings 

4 41 



42 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

greatly influence men for the better in this life, how- 
ever it may afiect them in the future. 

What sane man would desire to deny the dy- 
ing the consolation of a hope for a blissful existence 
beyond the grave? 

And what if Bob Ingersol be right, 

The Christian world be wrong, 
The grave one dark eternal night, 

Immortal life a song ? 

The Bible but a baseless lie, 

There be no heaven, no hell, 
The spirit with the body die, 

No resurrection spell ? 

That all of life is life to live, 

And all of death to die, — 
Our immortality a myth, 

The spirit but a lie ? 

The millions passed away from earth 

Rejoicing in their trust — 
Relying on a second birth, 

Comprising only dust ? 

No Savior, God, no heaven, no hell? 

No truth in Adam's fall ? 
To dying men this Ingersol 

Would say, " That death ends all! " 

What cheerless words, when last of light? 

Recedes from mortal eye — 
That death is an eternal night, 

The soul itself to die ! 

Believe it not, let God remain, 

Immortal life prevail; 
No mountebank in search of fame 

Shall this fond hope assail. 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 43 

And till there be a better gain 

Than gospel truths impart, 
Let immortality remain 

To cheer the longing heart. 

And let me still believe a lie 

If the Bible be untrue, 
To cheer me when I come to die 

As nothing else can do ! 

And ere this Lucifer of earth 

Shall spend his latest breath, 
May millions born of heavenly birth 

Gain victory over death ! 

Anything that smoothes the pillow of an expiring 
mortal and lessens the anguish of the sick, is some- 
thing that is to be treasured as a priceless jewel. 
What could possibly be gained by satisfying every 
person that the Bible is a fable and that Jesus Christ is 
a myth ? If infidelity is true, if there is nothing re- 
served for man but cold, cheerless annihilation when 
the breath leaves the body, it is a doctrine that re- 
quires no advocacy in its support, — it is a hell, the 
most dreadful which the imagination ever conceived,, 
and from which everything which has being instinct- 
ively recoils with apprehension and horror. 

There is something indescribably ridiculous in the 
college youths making attacks upon religion. The 
bull butting against the locomotive is a poor compar- 
ison in folly. 

There is a religious element in man as much as 
there is a moral, physical, or intellectual element. 
When one can be obliterated the other may be, but 
not before. 



44 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

It was well said by a man in the French reign of 
terror, that if there was no God it would be necessary 
to create one. 

It is no evidence of learning to attack and vilify 
the Bible. The best scholars the world ever produced 
professed their belief in it. It is not likely that a few 
young college graduates, who are merely picking up 
the pebbles on the sea of knowledge, will ever be able 
to overthrow a religion that has received the sanc- 
tion of the brightest scholars the world has ever pro- 
duced. 



Aaron Burr. 



If Aaron Burr was not the greatest man that ever 
occupied the position of vice-president of the United 
States, his life was certainly the most eventful. To 
the end of time his name will figure in American 
annals " to paint a moral or adorn a tale." There are 
thousands and tens of thousands who refer to him, 
who are very imperfectly acquainted with, if they 
know at all anything about his personal history. 

We have a mythological character whom we label 
Burr, which nevertheless bears but a slight resem- 
blance to the original character of that name. If 
there is anything in religion and pious ancestry to 
govern a child, Mr. Burr had it in perfection. He 
was the grandson of the Rev. Dr. Edwards, perhaps 
the most distinguished religious polemic this nation 
ever produced. His treatise upon the " Freedom of the 
Will" is in the library of almost every orthodox cler- 
gyman, and is considered to conclusively demonstrate 
the fact that while God foresaw from the beginning 
what the future destiny of every person would be, he 
at the same time placed it in their power to choose 
for themselves that destiny. The daughter of Dr. 

45 



46 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Edwards, Esther by name, was the mother of Aaron. 
His father was an eminent clergyman, and the presi- 
dent of Princeton College, New Jersey. Growing up 
under the influence ot such teachings, they neverthe- 
less had no influence upon Aaron's convictions ; and 
when he arrived at an age to choose for himself, 
although never an avowed skeptic, he was very far 
from being orthodox. 

The earlier events of his career are widely known. 
Leaving college at the age of seventeen with a slight 
and fragile form, he entered the Revolutionary army, 
and was one of Benedict Arnold's command which 
crossed the forests of Maine, enduring hardships 
compared to which Napoleon's passage of the Alps 
was a holiday tour. 

He was near Montgomery when he fell at the dis- 
astrous attack of the Americans on Quebec on the 
last day of the year 1775. 

General Washington hesitated whether he should 
appoint Burr or Hamilton as his military secretary. 
Thus early in life did the rivalry of these two men 
commence. The preference was given to Hamilton. 
The war being over, in which both distinguished 
themselves, they became lawyers in New York. 

Mr. Burr, although only thirty-five years old, had 
such ability as a man, such shrewdness as a politician, 
that he defeated General Schuyler, Hamilton's father- 
in-law, one of the wealthiest men on the continent, 
for United States senator from New York. His 
triumph was remarkable, for in that age wealth and 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 47 

veteran service was everything. Burr rose rapidly. 
He passed the crowd of revolutionary soldiers, ora- 
tors, and statesmen, and at the age of forty-two was 
vice-president of the United States. He would have 
been president but for the opposition of Hamilton. 

Thomas Jefferson, whom he so nearly defeated for 
the chief-magistracy, although of the same party, 
never forgave him, but pursued him ever afterward 
with intense hatred. 

Burr's time as vice-president being on the point of 
expiring, he became a candidate for governor of New 
York. His election would have been sure but for the 
opposition of Mr. Hamilton. In the course of that 
campaign, language of an exceedingly defamatory 
character, used in private conversation by Mr. 
Hamilton respecting him, came to the ears of 
Mr. Burr. 

In that day almost every distinguished man fought 
duels. The Marquis of Wellsley, Canning of Castle- 
reigh, Moore the poet, Jeffrey the critic, and others 
had fought theirs in England. DeWitt Clinton, 
Jackson, Clay, Vanesse, and Randolph resorted to 
them in the United States to heal their wounded 
honor. A son of Alexander Hamilton, who had 
hardly reached his manhood, had been killed in a 
duel at Hoboken. It was there that Hamilton met, 
after his son's decease, Burr's challenge, and was 
killed. The fall of so distinguished a man created 
great excitement, and elicited much moral indignation 
.against dueling. Nevertheless, Burr was not molest- 



48 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

ed, and proceeded to Washington, where for the ses- 
sion he presided as vice-president. 

Indeed, he was never called upon to abide any 
judicial prosecution. Feeling, however, that a stigma 
had been cast upon his name in New York, he deter- 
mined never again to reside in that city. He was 
urged to go to Tennessee, to hang out his shingle as 
a lawyer at Nashville, where in a short time he was 
promised a seat in congress. But he abandoned this 
idea and gave his attention to the Mexican scheme. 
He became what would now be known as a " filibus- 
ter." Mexico was on the point of separating from 
Spain. Burr's object was to go to Mexico with an 
armed band, place himself at the head of the move- 
ment, and become the emperor of that country. In 
order to avoid the neutrality laws, it was involved in 
such mystery that the idea got out that it was his 
object to separate the south-western states from the 
Union. The president, Mr. Jefferson, did not like 
him. His arrest was ordered, and he was brought to 
trial before the Supreme Court at Richmond, Virginia. 
The chief-justice, John Marshall, was one of the most 
intimate friends of Alexander Hamilton; but strong 
as his prejudices might be against his slayer, he 
did not allow them to interfere with him as a judge. 
Besides, he hated Jefferson intensely, and was not 
disposed to favor him any. Burr was acquitted under 
instruction from the court, it not being proved that he 
had committed any personal overt act of treason 
against the United States. Burr had able counsel to 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 49 

assist him, but throughout the trial was his own best 
lawyer. Among the outsiders who were then friendly 
to his cause was Andrew Jackson, who neglected no 
opportunity to denounce the prosecution. The first 
suggestion, years afterward, of Jackson for president, 
in order to break down the Virginia dynasty, which 
had had the presidency for twenty-four years, came 
from Burr in a letter to his son-in-law, Governor All- 
ston, of South Carolina. 

Burr then proceeded to Europe, in order to interest 
either England or France in his Mexican scheme. 
Strange to say, although they were at war with each 
other, both opposed it. England was the ally of the 
popular party in Spain, then carrying on a war 
against Napoleon, who had placed his brother Joseph 
on the throne. She would not consent to the sep- 
aration of Mexico from the Spanish crown. Napo- 
leon would not agree to it, because it would detract 
from the possessions, as he thought, of his brother 
Joseph. The British prime-minister thereupon 
wrote Mr. Burr a note, requesting him to leave the 
country. He, after wandering over the continent, 
proceeded to Paris. He could do nothing there, and 
when he wanted to leave the empire he was refused 
the privilege. He was there detained, practically, as 
a prisoner for some years. 

King Jerome, of Westphalia, the brother of Napo- 
leon, who had been his guest at Richmond Hall, New 
York, in the days of his prosperity, refused to see 
him in Paris. He was reduced to utter destitution, 



50 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

almost beggarly in fact, before he obtained his pass- 
port to leave. 

He returned to the United States under the assum- 
ed name of Arnott, for the American government 
threw every obstacle in his way. His daughter, 
Theodoria, the wife of Governor Allston of South 
Carolina, one of the most intellectual and accomplish- 
ed ladies of the day, whom he had educated on the 
woman's rights principle, — just exactly as he would 
have done had she been of the other sex, — made 
haste to join him with her infant son at New York. 
The vessel upon which she set sail from Charleston 
was never heard from afterward. But he toiled and 
struggled on, and made large sums of money as a 
lawyer in New York, the most of which he gave 
away in charity. It was not until 1836, after a gen- 
eration had risen and disappeared who hardly knew 
him, that he died. 

That he was, in an eminent degree, as much as any 
man who ever lived, the victim of slander and detrac- 
tion is certain. The world seems to delight to assail 
the unfortunate who are on the downward road to ruin. 

Mr. Burr had the strongest intellectual qualities. 
As a persuasive orator, before juries, he was unex- 
celled. As a political manager he had no rival. He 
had great knowledge of men, and remarkable success 
among women. There were few of either sex who 
were not charmed by his elegant address, his soft and 
elegant manners, and his remarkable powers of con- 
versation. 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 51 

That he had great moral weakness is certain, yet it 
is not sustained by his appearance. He gives the lie 
to physiognomy. There is not only nothing sensual 
about his countenance, but it is exactly the reverse. 
It is delicate and fine in its contour, and sentimental 
in its expression. He rather resembles a doctor of 
divinity. The sex whom, according to popular belief, 
he most injured by his intrigues, were always his 
friends during life, and to one of them he owes the 
tombstone in Princeton Cemetery which marks the 
place where his remains repose. It is generally be- 
lieved to be the work of the daughter of a Scotch 
officer, whom, sixty years before, he had met at the 
siege of Quebec. 

There were few men who ever possessed greater 
moral or physical courage, or who met with more un- 
shrinking fortitude a hostile public sentiment. His 
fall may be dated from his fatal duel with Hamilton. 
The public sentiment seemed then suddenly to awaken 
to the sin of dueling, just as it did in the case of 
Lord Byron to the sin of a man who was on ill terms 
with his wife. Both were pursued to their graves by 
a remorseless fate, and upon both were affixed stain, 
which, however common they may have been before 
aud siuce to humanity, seemed in their cases to pecul- 
iarly aggravate a public opinion, which, in general, is 
utterly careless and indifferent about them. 



A Lonely Death-bed. 



Fifty years ago, in a dark garret near the loneliest 
suburbs of the city of London, lay a dying man. He 
was but half dressed, though his legs were concealed 
in long military boots. An aged minister stood be- 
side the rough couch. The form was that of a strong 
man, grown old with care more than age. There 
was a face which you might look upon but once yet 
wear in your memory forever. 

Let us bend over the bed, and look upon that face. 
A bold forehead, seamed by one deep wrinkle between 
the eye-brows; long locks of dark hair, sprinkled 
with gray; lips firmly set, yet quivering as though 
they had a life separate from the life of the man; and 
then two large eyes, vivid, burning, unnatural in their 
steady glare. Ay, there was something terrible in 
that face, something so full of unutterable loneliness, 
unspeakable despair, that the aged minister started 
back in horror. 

But look! Those strong arms are clutching at the 
vacant air. The death-sweat stands in drops on that 
bold brow. The man is dying. Throb, throb, throb, 
beats the death-watch in the shattered wall. "Would 

53 



54 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

you die in the faith of a Christian?" faltered the 
preacher, as he knelt there on the damp floor. The 
white lips of the death-stricken man trembled, but 
made no sound. Then, with the strong agony of 
death upon him, he rose to a sitting posture. For 
the first time he spoke. " Christian," he echoed in 
that deep tone which thrilled the preacher to the 
heart; "will that faith give me back my honor? 
Come with me, old man ; come with me far over 
the waters. Ha! we are there now. This is my 
native town. Yonder is the church in which I knelt 
in* childhood; yonder the green on which I sported 
when a boy. But another flag waves yonder in 
place of the flag that waved when I was young. 
And listen, old man, were I to pass along these 
streets, as I passed when but a child, the very 
babes in their cradles would curse me ; the graves in 
yonder grave-yard would shrink beneath my foot- 
steps; and yonder flag would rain a baptism of blood 
on my head ! " 

That was an awful death-bed. The minister had 
watched the last night of a hundred convicts in their 
cells, but had never beheld such a scene — terrible in 
its nature — as this. Suddenly the dying man arose, 
and tottered across the floor. With those white fin- 
gers, whose nails were blue with the death chill, he 
threw open a valise. He drew from thence a faded 
coat of blue, faced with silver, and the wreck of a 
battle-flag. "Look, ye priest, this faded coat of blue 
is spotted with my blood ! " he cried, as old memo- 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 55 

ries seemed stirring at his heart. " This coat I wore 
when first I heard the news of Lexington ; this coat 
I wore when I planted the banner of the stars on 
Ticonderoga; that bullet-hole was pierced in the light 

at Quebec; and now I am a , let me whisper it 

into your ear." He hissed that single burning word 
into the minister's ear. " Now help me, priest, help 
me to put on this faded coat of blue, for you see — " 
and a ghasty smile came over his face — u there is no 
one here to wipe the cold drops from my brow — no 
wife, no child. I must meet Death alone; but I will 
meet him as I have met him in the battle-iield — with- 
out a fear. And while he stood arraying his limbs 
in that worm-eaten coat, the aged minister spoke to 
him in faith of Jesus. Yes, of that great faith which 
pierces the clouds of human guilt, and rolls them 
back from the face of God. 

" Faith," echoed that strange man, who stood there, 
erect, with the death-chill on his brow. " Faith ! 
Can it give me back my honor? Look ye, priest^ 
there over the waves sits George Washington telling 
to his comrades the pleasant story of the eight years* 
war; there, in his royal palace, sits King George III., 
bewailing, in his idiotic voice, the loss of his colonies; 
and here am I — I who was the first to raise the flag- of 
freedom, the first to strike a blow against that kin«*! 
Here am I, dying; oh, dying like a dog! " 

The awe-struck preacher started back from the 
look of the djing man, while throb, throb, throb,, 
beats the death-watch in the shattered wall. 



56 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

"Hush! Silence along the Hues! Not a word; not 
a word on peril of your life ! Hark you, Montgom- 
ery ! We will meet in the center of the town; we 
will meet there in victory or death. Hist! Silence, 
my men ; not a whisper as we move up these steep 
rocks. Now, on, my boys ! on, men of the wilder- 
ness ! we will gain the town! Now up with the ban- 
ner of the stars, up with the flag of freedom, though 
the night is dark and the snow falls fast ! Now, now, 
one more blow and Quebec is ours ! " 

Look! His eyes grow glassy as he stands there 
with that word on his lips. Ah, what a hideous 
picture of despair! Erect, livid, ghastly, there for 
a moment, and then he falls. He is dead. 

Ah! look at that proud form, thrown cold and stiff" 
upon the damp floor. In that glassy eye there lingers 
even yet a horrible energy, a sublimity of despair. 

Who is this strong, man, lying here alone in this 
strange garret — this man who, in all his crimes, still 
treasures up in that blue uniform that faded flag ? 
Who is this being of horrible remorse, this man 
whose memories seem to link something of heaven, 
but more of hell? 

Let us look at that parchment and flag. The aged 
minister unrolls that faded flag. It is a blue banner, 
gleaming with thirteen stars. He unrolls that parch- 
ment. It is a colonel's commission, in the Continental 
army, addressed to Benedict Arnold ! 

There, in that rude hut, while the death-watch 
throbbed like a heart in the shattered wall, unknown, 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 57 

unwept, in all the bitterness of woe, lay the corpse of 
the patriot and the traitor. Oh, that our own true 
"Washington had been there to sever that good right 
arm from the corpse, and, while the dishonored body 
rotted into dust, to bring home that noble arm and 
embalm it among the holiest memories of the past! 
For that right arm struck many a gallant blow for 
freedom. Yonder at Ticonderoga, at Quebec, at 
Champlain, and Saratoga, that arm, yonder beneath 
the snow-white mountain, in the deep silence of the 
river of the dead, first raised into light the banner of 
the stars ! 

5 



The Triumphs of Peace. 



Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the 
age in which we live, as showing its tendencies and 
the influences by which it is governed, than the indus- 
trial atLiirs of the world. Many of the nations of the 
earth now no longer strive to surpass each other in 
military powers and fonts of arms. They no longer 
array their plumed and sabled knights in disciplined 
battalions, like the warriors of old, but, on the con- 
trary, they strive to excel in the arts of peaceful in- 
dustry, which conduces to the happiness of mankind. 
These mechanical expositions afford cheering indica- 
tions that peace has her triumphs as well as war, and 
that the time has at last arrived when the skillful 
artisan and agriculturalist will receive their meed of 
approbation, which heretofore has been lavished upon 
the general and the statesman. The inventor of some- 
useful art, or one who has made some improvement in 
agriculture, are both more eminently deserving to be 
crowned with the laurels of fame than any of the 
great warriors whose praises have been sounded in the 
annals of history or embalmed in the poet's muse, for 
the one gives to man something that will aid him in 

59 



60 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

his trials or alleviate his troubles, while the other will 
rob him of his home. 

Heretofore this consideration has not been taken 
into account, and those only have been immortalized 
who have done the most injury to their species by 
sanguinary wars in which they have come off victo- 
rious by slaughtering thousands of the human family. 
To destroy and devastate the fruits of human indus- 
try was for a long series of ages considered more hon- 
orable than to invent means by which they could be- 
come available to the world. 

While the names of Alexander, Csesar, Hannibal, 
and other great military chieftains, are familiar to 
every school-boy, on account of the numberless men 
they have slaughtered, the authors of some of the 
most important discoveries in the arts and the sciences 
are almost unknown to the annals of fame, and their 
names have been lost in the dim obscurity of the past, 
over which their inventions should have shed a 
radiance of light, giving them a glorious immortality. 

True, the triumphs of peace are less dazzling and 
brilliant: than those of war, but men should be ever 
ready to : embalm the names of those who add to their 
peace and prosperity among the sweetest names that 
live. They are not accompanied with that panoply of 
display which encircles military glory, and to the 
young and unreflecting may be less attractive on that 
account, but they are far more permanent and endur- 
ing by the. influences which they exert upon the 
world. . It is possible that an invention in the arts and 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. ._;. .61 

sciences, — a contribution to the knowledge of man in 
those respects, — may last until the proudest ' monu- 
ments of antiquity crumble and decay, while the 
triumph of a military chieftain lives only during the 
generation that witnesses it. 

We are glad to see in the motives that prompt the 
great exhibitions of the industries of the world indi- 
cations that a better era is dawning upon us, and that 
the time is coming when the successful artisan and 
agriculturalist will be rewarded for his labors as well 
as the blood-stained hero and statesmen, who hereto'- 
fore have monopolized the whole in every regard. 

This is emphatically an age of peace; and R. B. 
Hayes, President of the United States, has recognized 
this fact in this, that he has extended to the southern 
wing of our nation the liberties due a conquered 
people. In fact, ever since the close of the immortal 
conflict the triumphs of peace have been recognized 
in America, for during this time we have had the 
least turmoil and dissension that has ever followed a 
human conflict. 

For a century and a half the fair face of England 
was crimsoned with the blood that flowed in the con- 
test between the Korrnan barons and the people of 
that island. Eight centuries of English rule has not 
stilled the voice of rebellion in Ireland. Scotland, 
though often defeated, has not until recent times 
yielded to the will of England. 

In France, since the days when the mailed band of 
Charles Martel fell in destruction among the throng- 



62 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

■ W' ■ ■ 

ing Saracens at Tours and Poitiers, the land has been 
filled with resistance to the authority of established 
government. Even in the days of her grandeur, — 
the days when the crown of iron rested on the brow 
of Charlemange, the days when crafty Richelieu held 
sway, the days when Louis the Grand sat upon the 
throue,— the land felt the shock of rebellious prov- 
inces. Even the great ruler, who to day sleeps be- 
neath the dome of the Invalides of France, — the 
mighty soldier under whose reign the eagles of France 
swept with their wings the summit of "the Alps and 
shadowed England from the Seine to far beyond the 
frozen Vistula, — even he was only able to hold his 
empire together, and partially hush the voice raised 
against his authority. Thus we see that the triumph 
of peace in America is forever gaining ground. 



"Great Men have no Continuance." 



Such was the remark of one of the greatest philos- 
ophers and the most profound observers of modern 
times. Every page of history attest the truth of this 
declaration of Lord Bacon. .Great intellects and 
characters find it even more difficult to transmit their 
qualities to their descendants than the devotees of 
wealth do to hand down to succeeding generations 
their great acquisitions of wealth. 

The hero of the Revolution, General Washington, 
and the most distinguished leader of the war of 1812, 
Andrew Jackson, were childless. So was one of the 
most distinguished authors of the Constitution, James 
Madison. All of these men were presidents of the 
United States. To these are to be added two others, 
James K. Polk and James Buchanan, Still another, 
General Pierce, has no lineal descendants in whom his 
blood flows to-day. 

The first and most distinguished of our authors, 
"Washington Irving, was a bachelor. 

The greatest, in many respects, of American orators, 
John Randolph, was never married. 

63 



64 OEMS OP LITERATURE. 

Where is the representative child of that erratic 
child of genius, Edgar A. Poe ? 

Two of the vice-presidents of the United States, 
Aaron Burr and William R. King, died without issue. 

The two men, the greatest in the last and in this 
generation in the collecting of a colossal fortune, 
were Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, and A. T. 
Stewart of New York. Girard never had any chil- 
dren ; neither had Stewart. The vast wealth of 
Girard will be appreciated when we state that in the 
war of 1812, when capitalists recoiled from taking 
the American loan, he stepped forward and alone and 
unassisted took five millions of dollars. His immense 
fortune had to go to collateral heirs and to purposes 
of public charity. 

But now look at another class of heroes, statesmen, 
and scholars, who left children, it is true, but in no 
instance did they inherit the genius of their progeni- 
tors. The names of two of the presidents, Thomas 
Jefferson and James Monroe, were lost in the female 
line. 

Save the Adamses, what great hereditary names 
appear on the pages of our history? Where are the 
young Calhouns, the Websters, the Clays, the Choates, 
and the Everetts? Where are the Bells, the Mc- 
Duffies, the Randolphs, the Pinckneys, and the Ham- 
iltons, that once shed such light and glory on our 
American congress? In the main, wherever they ex- 
ist, they possess as little of the genius and spirit of 
their ancestors as Richard Cromwell, the son of the 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. 65 

great Oliver, did when he voluntarily descended from 
a position which was not inferior to the British 
throne, and which had been gained for him by the 
talents of his father, the great protector. 

Distinguished talents seem to abhor nepotism* 
The celestial fires of genius, descending from on high, 
are seldom lighted at the hearts of more than one of 
a family. The products of brains, in an eminent de- 
gree, are too valuable and rare not to be sent around 
to the whole human race as far as possible. What- 
ever monopolies some families may long preserve, a 
monopoly of genius is not of the number. 

We have alluded to a notable exception, that of the 
Adamses. Four generations have seen them distin- 
guished. Three of them, a grandfather, father, and 
son have been ministers of the United States to Great 
Britain. Twenty-five years ago Charles Francis- 
Adams did not possess the eminence he has since 
attained. He was then, upon one occasion, while run- 
ning for vice-president on the Freesoil ticket, alluded 
to by the great orator, Rums Choate, as Charles 
Francis Adams, the son of the last Adams, throwing 
a marked emphasis on the word "last" 

Such exceptions, however, only prove the truth of 
the rule. The old adage that "like begets like" does 
not hold true in the perpetuation of men of talent. 



The Last Single Captive. 



The great war between the two opposing sections 
•of the American Union has long since closed. The 
white wings of peace are hovering over the eight 
millions of people on the one side and the twenty-five 
millions on the other. The brave men of the North, 
— who never learned their lessons of devotion to 
their government in dressing-gown and slippers, sur- 
rounded by wife and children and all the sweets of 
private life; but men who learned their lessons of 
devotion to their country in the camp, on the 
march, among the mountains, and beside the rivers of 
the South, and showed how well they had learned 
those lessons in the ranks of the army, on the field 
of conflict; in the days when this continent shook 
beneath the tread of contending hosts; in times when 
the air was filled with the tempest of battle; in the 
hours when death rode sublime upon the clouds of 
war, and the chivalry of the North and South alike 
went dowu together before the sweep of his terrible 
arm,— are now discharging the duties of citizens at 

home, 

67 



68 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

On the other hand, the great chiefs of the losing 
side, as well as the minor officers and privates, have 
all been released by the victors, and the most liberal 
terms granted to them that have ever been extended 
from conqueror to conquered; and they have all re- 
turned to their homes, so terribly shattered by the 
conflict, and are now cultivating their wasted planta- 
tions, rebuilding their cities and towns, educating 
their sons and daughters, increasing their foreign 
commerce, and causing the roses of joy to> climb and 
clamor over the broken cannons of war. 

General Lee, the commander of that ever-memora- 
ble "Army of Northern Virginia," which for four 
years chained success to its banners; which defeated 
and routed in succession four of the immense arma- 
ments of the North, led by their most daring and ex- 
perienced knights; which, by his bold and daring 
deeds, made Richmond immortal in the history of 
men, is now discharging the quiet duties of the pres- 
ident of a college in a sequestered village in his native 
state. 

He who once controlled thousands of men on the 
field of conflict; he who was armed with the power 
of a dictator of a territory half as large as Europe,, 
now makes the rules and regulations by which a few 
sons of some wealthy nabobs can be got to bed at the 
proper hours of night ! 

General Beauregard, who actually struck the first 
blow in a war that set a continent in a blaze of arms 
and shook the world from center to circumference, is 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 69 

now engaged iu regulating the affairs of a railroad in 
Louisiana. 

Generals Longstreet, Johnson, Hood, and Ben Hill 
have gone back to the private walks of life, to rise 
again on a current of excitement. 

Those in the pulpit, the press, and the forum, who 
by eloquence and zeal roused the people of the South 
to that desperate extremity when everything was 
risked upon the issue of armed collision, have shared 
in the amnesty of the past and are partakers of what- 
ever hope exists in the future. 

But there is a southern chieftain whose name has 
become immortal among men, and who is guarded 
night and day with scrutiny, and on whom we have 
thrown the panoply of our vengeance. He, the pres- 
ident of the Southern Confederacy, who at the request 
of eight millions of people and eleven sovereign 
states accepted the position to become their second 
Washington, stands to day, all solitary and alone, the 
one political prisoner of the government of the United 
States! But when we recall to our memories the 
trying hours of our soldiers at Andersonville and 
Libby, — many of them the bravest and best, the most 
devoted and heroic of those grand armies, who car- 
ried the flag of their country to final victory,— and 
then think that this secoud Washington, by the sim- 
ple wave of his hand, nod of his head, or wink of his 
eye, could have silenced it at once, we say his doom 



70 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

is just ! But he, in one essential, can adopt the beau- 
tiful lines of the poet : 

" I have coped with the nations which conquered me only, 
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far; 
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely, 
The last single captive to millions in war." 

Mr. Jefferson Davis is surely " the last single cap- 
tive to millions in war." 



The Downfall of Nations. 



r 



Our greatest writers and speakers have differed 
very much as to how long the government of the 
United States will be perpetuated in its present form. 
Some have thought that it will be of very short dur- 
ation; others, that it will be handed down for many 
generations to come. Reasoning by analogy, or in 
other words judging the future by the past, there are 
not many of the present generation who will not 
be able to have it said that they have lived under 
two forms of government; and, as an evidence 
of the short duration of governments, a brief retro- 
spective view is all that is necessary to substantiate 
this fact. 

We will first look at Egypt, which lies on the coast 
of the Mediterranean Sea, and which not many hun- 
dred years ago was the richest and most enlightened 
nation on the face of the globe. But as she grew in 
wealth she also grew in extravagance, and many of 
her pyramids and monuments are standing to-day as 
sad memorials of her ancient profligacy. 

We next come to Rome, which began for a score or 

71 



72 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

two of years with nothing but shepherds and robbers 
drawn together in a miserable cluster of mud cabins; 
and she was seven hundred years in reaching the sum- 
mit of her greatness. Then her country flourished 
with money, and her young men became so delicate 
that they could not work. There is no more effectual 
way to destroy a great and mighty nation than to give 
its young men all the money they want. Provide 
them with plays, amusements, festivities, dances, and 
wines, and then leave them to sweat the life and man- 
hood out of body and soul. That is the way imperial 
Rome became an easy prey to northern barbarians ; 
that is the way Babylon was ruined ; that is the way 
Christian Constantinople came under the debasing 
and corruptible influence of the Mohammedans; that 
is the way Venice ended a thousand years of grand 
and glorious history with shame and servitude ; and 
nothing worse could come upon the fairest and most 
Christian city in the world to-day than to have a ten- 
der and delicate set of young men without energy, 
without principle, without conscience, but with money 
enough to support elegant pleasures and costly vices. 
Let such men give tone to public opinion and take the 
lead in the highest circles of society in any city in 
our land and they will soon make it the Sodom of 
America. 

The Hebrews numbered three millions the first day 
as a nation. They started upon their eventful career 
as the river Rhone springs full- voiced and strong from 
the foot of the Glaziers. The Egyptian, the Babylo- 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 73 

nian, the Assyrian kingdoms, all the great conquering 
nations of the ancient times, have utterly passed 
away. They have now no representatives to bear 
their name or to glory in their history; and it is im- 
possible to trace their influences in the history of the 
world to-day, as the inscriptions upon their monu- 
ments tell us but little, and we see their greatness 
only in their ruins. 

We next take up the Chaldean nation, to whom 
Belshazzar belonged, and which was a proud and prof- 
ligate race. He was the last of the Babylonian kings 
The great palace iu which Belshazzar reigned was six 
times as great as the front of St. Peters church at 
Rome, and four times as great as the length of the 
capitol at Washington. It was surrounded by three 
walls so high that it would take thirteen men, 
standing one above the other, to reach the top. The 
city in which Belshazzar reigned was fifteen miles 
square, surrounded by walls which were seventy-five 
feet higher than the highest tower in America. 

Belshazzar inherited the pride, the power, the in- 
fluence, the riches, the capitol, and the glory of his 
great father. He inherited enough to ruin any man. 
He was admitted to the kingly throne at the age of 
fifteen, and the glory was too great for that mighty 
man. He comes to the conclusion that he must have 
a great feast for his thousand lords ; so the hanging- 
gardens of Babylon are hung with lanterns which 
shine like a mountain of fire ; torch-light processions 
flowed like rivers of flame; the blue Chaldean heav- 

6 



74 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

ens looked black above the great illumination. Bel- 
shazzar enters the hall. He is so excited with wine, 
and carried away with the delusion that no foe could 
conquer his great and mighty city, that he is anxious 
to make some grand display of blasphemous desecra- 
tion. 

" Bring forth," cries the monarch, *' the vessels of gold 
Which my father tore down from the temple of old ! 
Bring forth, and we'll drink while the trumpets are blown 
To the gods of bright silver, of gold, and of stone. 
Bring forth! " — and before him the vessels all shine; 
And he bows unto Baal, and drinks the dark wine ; 
While the trumpets bray, and cymbals ring, 
Praise, praise to Belshazzar, Bel shazzar the king. 

Now what cometh? look, look! without menace or call! 
Who writes with the lightning's bright hand on the wall ? 
What pierceth the king like the point of a dart ? 
What drives the bold blood from his cheek to his heart ? 
Let the captive of Judath the letters expound ! 
They are read, and Belshazzar is dead on the ground. 
Hark, the Persians come on the conqueror's wing, 
. And the Medes on the throne of Belshazzar the king. 

The rapidity with which the ministers of vengeance 
came upon Belshazzar and his thousand lords on the 
last night of his impious reign was wonderful; and 
at the very moment when their sacrilegious revelry 
was at its height, the bodiless hand came forth and 
wrote the words of doom on the walls of the ban- 
quet-room. 

The armies of Cyrus had turned the river Euphrates 
out of its channel and marched into the unguarded 
city along the bed of the stream beneath the wall. 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 75 

They were~already in possession of the palace gates 
when Belshazzar and his princes were drinking wine 
from the cup of Jehovah, and praising the gods of 
gold and of silver and of stone, and that mighty feast 
of boasting and of blasphemy was the last ceremonial 
of the Chaldean kings. 

About the same time that all this commotion is 
going on in the palace of Belshazzar, the temple of 
Diana is burned, which worked destruction to many 
of the eastern empires. Ab<)ut the same time Alex- 
ander the Great is born. Twenty years roll away, and 
this famous man comes upon the stage of action. He 
just ascended the throne when he saw himself sur- 
rounded on every side with extreme danger. 

The barbarous nations from the .North, whom his 
father had fought against during his whole reign, are 
daily making their attacks upon his provinces. He 
seizes his sword, and secures his kingdom from the 
barbarians. He then sets out upon an expedition 
toward Greece, and comes to the walls of Athens. 
Here is a great and flourishing city, containing such 
men as Demosthenes and Socrates. But she must fall. 

Alexander turns to his men and says, "Demos- 
thenes called me a child when I was at Assyria; he 
called me a young man when I was at Thesley ; and I 
will now show him before the walls of Athens that I 
am a full-grown man, and will conquer Greece;" and 
80 he did. 

He then set out upon an expedition from Mace- 
donia, and conquered the Persian empire. He arrives 



76 GEMS OF LITERATURE. ■ 

at Lyons, and pays great honor to the tomb of 
Achilles. He then sets out upon an expedition and 
conquers the greater part of Asia Minor. He then 
marches victorious into Syria, and the treasures at 
Damascus are delivered unto him. He then marches 
to the city of Tistbus, and gains a famous victory over 
Darius; and thus he went on until he had conquered 
every nation on the face of the globe, and wept be- 
cause there were no more nations for him to conquer. 
But King Alcohol then conquered him. 

On his death-bed, Alexander would not dispose of 
his dominions in favor of any heir; and thus his vast 
empire, which no longer had a ruler to sway it, be- 
came the source of competition and wars, as Alex- 
ander had plainly foreseen when he declared that 
his friends would celebrate his funeral with bloody 
battles. 

He had several relations which were in the line of 
accession to the crown — a brother, two sons, and three 
sisters, — but shortly after his death they were all de- 
stroyed, and thus the family became extinct. His 
vast dominions were divided among four of his lead- 
ing generals — Ptolemy, Lymacus, Casander, and 
Celucus. They at once began to quarrel and fight 
among themselves, and from that time on until it was 
conquered by the Romans, it presents nothing but a 
bloody scene of revolutions. 

We now come to France, that nation which has al- 
ways been either the pity or admiration of the world. 
Leaving all that important and bloody history of the 



GEMS OF LITERATURE* 77 

Stuarts and Bourbons, we come down to the time 
when France was divided into the two great parties 
called the Jacobins and Girondists. 

All students of history very well know how the 
bloody contest between those two great parties ended 
— by making Robespierre, that cruel despot, their 
ruler, who kept the guillotine running from early 
morn until late at night. Napoleon then springs 
upon the stage of action, and wades through blood 
and slaughter to the throne. 

France has forever been the source of competition 
and wars. But the conflict which raged between that 
nation and the German empire a few years ago disap- 
pointed many, as it presented a phenomenon in the mil- 
itary science unprecedented in the annals of mankind, 
— a phenomenon that has reversed all tradition, as it 
disappointed many and surpassed the expectations of a 
great and war-like people, renowned alike for their 
skill and valor, were swept away before the ad- 
vancing of an inferior foe like autumn stubble before 
a hurricane of fire. For aught that the people in 
America know, the next flash of electric fire that 
shimmers along the ocean-cable may tell us that 
Paris — with every fiber quivering with the agony 
of impotent despair, — writhes beneath the con- 
quering heel of their loathed invader; and ere an- 
other moon shall wax and wane the brightest star in 
the galaxy of nations may sink beneath the crimsoned 
horizon never to rise again, and ere the modest vio- 
lets of early spring shall ope their beauteous eyes the 



78 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

genius of civilization may chant the wailing requiem 
of the proudest nationality the world has ever seen 
as she scatters her withered and tear-moistened lilies 
over the bloody tomb of butchered France! 

But leaving the bloody scenes of the old world, 
we come back to America once more and for the 
last time. Where does the sun in all his orbit shed 
Ms beams on a country freer, better, and more en- 
lightened than a country like ours? Where is there 
a nation on the face of the globe that has better laws 
than ours? As I said before, some people have 
thought that our government will be of short dura- 
tion; others, that it will be handed down for many 
generations to come. But the records of history teach 
us that the former is true. We have a national debt 
of about two billions of dollars; and the future being 
nothing but a blank, it is difficult to tell what may 
become of this country. 

It is true that the astronomer can sit in his closet 
and tell the precise time and place in the sidereal 
heavens where a comet will re-appear, which has been 
absent a thousand years on its pathless pilgrimage 
through the wilderness of space. True to the very 
letter of his prophecy, this fiery train flashes upon 
our vision. He tells U3 there hangs upon the confines 
of our system a nameless planet so far away in the 
dim regions of the outer universe that mortal eye 
has never seen it. We turn our telescope upon the 
point that he indicates, and there, sure enough, is that 
strange land which has swept on in silent grandeur 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 79 

unseen by man since creation's morning dawned. He 
predicts a total eclipse of the sun a hundred years in 
the future, and names the exact time and place upon 
the earth where the sublime phenomenon will first be 
seen; and whether it be upon the lofty icebergs 
of Alaska, or upon the blood-stained soil of Turkey, 
true to the very letter of his prophecy this gigantic 
shadow falls upon the precise spot that he indicates. 
But to foretell what will be the condition of this 
country in the future, is beyond the utmost range of 
human conjecture itself. 

It is true it may be perpetuated for many years to 
come, but it can not exist always in its present condi- 
tion. I am of the opinion that when the revolution 
does come that such blood-shed, slaughter, and deso- 
lation shall have never been heard of in the annals of 
human history. Then this mighty nation will be di- 
vided into four monarchies, each separate and distinct 
within itself, and a crown of iron resting on the head 
of one in each of the realms. The New England 
states will compose one of these divisions ; the north- 
ern states another; the southern states another; and 
the states west of the Mississippi River will go to 
themselves. Thus our vast dominions will be divided 
into four states, as was the empire of Alexander. 

We all hope and pray that the government which 
"Washington planted in the wilderness of America 
will continue to widen and expand through all the 
coming ages. But the records of history are against 
us; and the signs of the times indicate that ere many 



80 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

years shall roll away we will fall in the same 
channel, be wafted by the same winds, come to the 
same end, and be crushed by the same hand as were 
the Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian em- 
pires. 



Cultivation f ^Esthetical Faculty. 



BY W. F. HARPER, 
Profe83or of Metaphysics and Didactics in the Kansas Normal College. 



[From an address to the students.] 

IsTature never betrayed the heart that loved her. 
'Tis her privilege, through all the years of this our 
life, to lead from joy to joy; for she can so inform the 
mind that is within us, so impress with quietness, and 
so feed with lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men shall 
ever prevail against us, or disturb our cheerful faith; 
that all which we behold is full of blessings. 

In my plea for the cultivation of the ^Esthetical 
Faculty, I would not lay myself open to those who 
are ever rea<ly to cry "Sentimentalist." I would 
keep myself to the practical. But what could be 
more practical than that which makes the human 
heart happier and fills it with a simpler faith? 

There are hours when you will draw yourselves 
away from the active, bustling, jostling scenes of 
business life and school-room cares, from the hurry 
of the street and confinement of the studio; the office 

81 



82 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

will be closed, and the desk will be as silent as a 
grave-stone. In those hours where are your thoughts? 
Are they pure and holy, or do they revel in the cham- 
bers of wantonness and lust? Is your mind recuper- 
ating itself, and gathering an accumulated strength, 
a freshness and a richness for new conquests? or is it 
weakened and debauched by vile practices and viler 
fancies? If you have cultivated your will-power until 
its behests control your passions, you will be able to 
restrain your imagination within its natural and legit- 
imate channels; but if the powers of invention, rea- 
son, and memory are ever taxed by your business, it 
still will be little better than mental suicide. 

The sun sinks behind the western hills, and all 
earth puts on the drapery of night, and you lay your 
tired body upon your couch — but not to sleep. Vaca- 
tion comes and goes, but it brings no rest.| Your work 
becomes a dry routine, ever pressing heavier, heavier 
upon your burdened spirit. You become a mere 
machine; and it is only a matter of time as to when 
the cogs and wheels and spindles will be worn out 
and cease to work forever. 

The mind is provided with its own means of renew- 
ing itself. Its own labors may become its own nutri- 
ment. Every material or subject of thought may be 
transmuted into mind, as food into bone and muscle 
and sinew. As the morning sun grows brighter 
and fuller as it rises toward midday, so should 
man increase in power as he approaches his me- 
ridian; and that meridian may be passed so far 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 83 

beyond the calculated zenith that the very evening of 
life can be made resplendent with grand and noble 
achievements. Do you ask me to be specific in regard 
to how our school- training shall contribute to such a 
result? It is not enough that we learn the frame- 
work of subjects— the necessary facts. Dry skeletons 
are useful, but they are more .to be desired in mu- 
seums than in drawing-rooms. 

There is a hidden beauty in every subject. I would 
have you pierce its meaning. You yourself should 
become the very center of that which excites your 
wonder. The most somber forms of matter acquire 
an added luster when we consider whence they come, 
what and whither- they are tending.' 

No subject offers a better field for the cultivation of 
the ^sthetical Faculty than geography. 

I have seen many of you filled with emotion as you 
have recited upon the forces which reared the Alps 
and the Himalayas; which leveled the plains and fur- 
rowed out the valleys; and as our studies have carried 
us along the banks of the Rhine or down by the Po, 
and into Italy, there has been a deep and quiet pleas- 
ure. Feast your own souls upon these works of 
Nature's architect, and you will oe filled with a peren- 
nial gladness, and the more you will lead your pupils 
to that cheerful faith which beholds in all things a 
perfect fullness of blessing. 

Forget not the beauties of our own land. Mighty, 
rock-ribbed continent, 'tis of thee we speak ! Thy 
matchless plains, thy fertile valleys, and snow-capped 



84 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

peaks find no rival on the continent of the Csesars and 
Napoleons. 

Though a Wordsworth, a Ruskin, and a Tennyson 
have immortalized their names by their poetic descrip- 
tions of European scenery, yet in the American wilds 
— where traveler's foot has never rested and enchant- 
ed eye never gazed — are countless Alps and Rhines 
and Italies. Unseen by man, unsung by poets, are 
gorgeous sunsets and skies more gloriously golden 
than human imagination ever painted. 

It seems that the great God has fashioned for him- 
self some of the grandest works of his hands. Up 
among the "eternal hills" is his habitation, where he 
has carpeted the earth with violets and roses softer 
than Brussels and more lovely than the most noted 
conservatories of the old world. 

As we stand upon the western slope of the Switzer- 
land of America and gaze into mute wonder and 
astonishment at the , stupendous works of a great 
unseen cause, what heart will refuse to respond with 
reverence and adoration! The imagination trained to 
picture to itself these productions of the divine Spirit, 
and oft bringing its possessor to "Nature's table-feast 
for ear and eye," will so relieve the monotony of this 
our life that it will be a pleasure, not a burden, to be 
of those who live. 

Be assured all harmonies of sound, form, color, and 
motion will lend life to thy dead faith; will lilt thy 
fnanhood up through a broader culture, a deeper love, 
a more consecrated purpose, to the level of your mon- 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. 85 

uments of Nature's own erecting. You will learn bet- 
ter than Bryant teaches it in his Thanatopsis : 

" To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware." 






The Nebular Hypothesis. 



If we cast our eyes toward the firmament on a 
clear aud beautiful evening we behold countless thou- 
sands of shining lights, and we are led to exclaim, in 
the language of the poet : 

" Ye stars that glitter in the skies, 
And gayly dance before mine eyes, 
And fade away when the sun shall rise, 
What is the story of thy birth?" 

"The story of thy birth" was a mystery to the 
scientist for many years, until finally Laplace gave a 
most startling theory to the world concerning the 
birth and fate of the planets of our universe, and it 
is known as "The Nebular Hypothesis." It is this: 
"In the beginning." Think of that. Beyond it is 
nothing but the silence and darkness of ancient 
night; out of it issue the periods and scenes and 
memories of time; the sun occupied the whole of 
our solar system, and extended beyond the limits of 
the most distant planets of our universe. From the 
lowest depths of hades to the most distant tabernacle 
in the kingdom of heaven there was nothing but a 
molten mass. 

87 



88 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

But as other plauetary systems hung upon the 
verge of ours while it was yet in its infancy, they ex- 
erted an influence upon the cosmical vapor which sur- 
rounded ours, thus causing it to collect upon that side 
where the attraction was the greatest. By this cause 
the center of gravity was thrown off from the center 
of the molten mass. The atoms upon the periphery, 
in their progress toward the center, would take a 
tangential course, the resultant of which was a tan- 
gential force. This tended to inaugurate a rotation 
of the mass upon an axis, and by the repetition of 
this process finally this whole solar system in a blaze 
began to revolve slowly upon an axis. A rotation 
once inaugurated in a shrinking mass, it is demonstra- 
ble that the motion would continue to be accelerated 
as long as the mass would continue to shrink. 

By the rotation being accelerated, the velocity of 
the peripheral portion became so great that it over- 
came the force of gravity and was thrown oft' from 
the residual mass in the form of a ring, which con- 
tinued to revolve in the same direction. This ring, 
becoming disruptured, resolved itself into a globe Of 
fire. The sun continuing to contract, it finally threw 
off another ring, which resolved itself into another 
globe of fire, and so on and on ui^til all the planets 
in our universe were thrown off from the sun, all 
revolving in the same direction, and all lying in the 
same plane, which must have been the plane of the 
equator of the sun. Finally that ring was thrown off, 
which was destined to form this grand old earth of 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 89 

ours. As the particles of matter upon the periphery 
would become cooled they would sink toward the 
center of the earth, and becoming melted would 
return again to the surface, only to repeat the 
process. 

Ages and ages fleeted by like the wings of a tem- 
pest on the sea -shore, when there was formed upon the 
crust a solid mass over the face of the earth. As the 
nucleus within continued to shrink, the crust of the 
earth must wrinkle in order to close the vacuum 
within. 

Thus by a new-born wrinkle the whole range of 
mountains from the lofty icebergs of Alaska to the 
heights of Patagonia were formed. But a scene of 
terrific sublimity approaches. No water as yet had 
fallen upon the parched and blackened crust, but the 
outer regions had become sufficiently cool to cause 
condensation to begin. 

In the far-otf regions wisps of vapor crept along- 
the sky like the rose-tinted clouds in our day fore- 
token the gathering storm. They grew, and thicken- 
ed, and blackened, until a pall of impending darkness 
and clouds inwraped this earth of ours, far surpassing 
anything known or heard of in Noachian* times. 

The rains began to descend, and in their descent 
were scorched to evaporation, and rolled back to the 
bosom of the clouds only to repeat the process. 
During this contest between fire and water, the voice 
of heaven's artillery was heard. Lightning darted 
through the air, and world-convulsing thunders re- 

7 



90 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

echoed through the heavens. The sky is changed — 
and such a change ! Oh, night, and storm, and dark- 
ness ! Presently the crust becomes sufficiently cooled 
that the waters lie upon it. The south wind is then 
sent forth from the ./Eolian cave and the clouds 
begin to break away. Lo! the first beam of light 
from the glorious sun shot through the breaking 
mist and its rays danced upon the troubled earth. 
The earth then passed through many geological 
changes, each adding new charms and new laurels to it, 
which should finally fit it for the habitation of man. 

The most distinguished age which the earth passed 
through was the reptilian, during which time snakes 
flew through the air. Huge sea-monsters, with the 
body of a lizard, ihe immense jaws and sharp conical 
teeth of a crocodile, and the short flat paddles of a 
whale, might have been seen leaping ten, twenty, or 
thirty feet into the surrounding air. 

If man had appeared upon the stage of human 
action then he would have only been a mouthful for 
one of those mighty Ichthyosaurus or Plesiosaurus 
which swam in the waters of the dim Laurentian 
seas and battled in deadly conflict for supremacy 
of the deep. Thus empires rose and crumbled to de- 
cay ages and ages before the foot of Adam had 
pressed the soil of the Garden of Eden. 

A series of dynasties fleeted by, like the shadow of 
a summer's cloud, and disappeared beneath the dim 
horizon of the past, while the empire of man was but 
an idea dwelling in the Almighty's mind. 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 



91 



Finally, that Being appeared upon the face of the 
earth, for which the Architecture of worlds had been 
preparing in all those dim and distant ages of the 
past. Dim and distant ages of the past! How the 
imagination halts, and faints, and falters in the effort 
to leap back over that infinite stretch of years to the 
time when our earth was a molten mass, and wander- 
ing on through all its vicissitudes and changes down 
to the present time, and going on and on in the future 
to the time when the cold fingers of Death shall 
gather their harvests of animating life ! 

Yes, by and by the eternal solitudes of snow, which 
mantle the ice-bound North, will send their sweeping 
avalanches to the bosom of the sunny South ; by and 
by the earth shall be clothed in the pale-white gar- 
ments of snow and ice; by and by no images of God 
shall tread the highways to fortune or to fame; by 
and by the fields of blooming flowers will yield' their 
fragrance to the cold and lifeless winds ; by and by 
the sweet songs of the birds will be hushed in ever- 
lasting silence; by and by no plumed and sabled 
knights will shake the earth from center to circum- 
ference with their bright and glistening sabers; by 
and by the cold, shadowy wings of destruction will 
hook on to mountain, hill, and dale, and slow tireless 
wings will bear it back to the bosom of its alma mater 9 
there to be remolded and started anew on its pathless 
pilgrimage through the wilderness of ages yet to 
come- Such, briefly told, is the theory of the Nebular 
Hypothesis. 



A Feast of Eloquence. 



In the winter of 1879, when General Grant return- 
ed from his tour around the world he was given a 
magnificent reception at Chicago, and in the evening 
a banquet and soldiers' reunion was held in honor of 
the warrior. At the banquet Colonel Robert G. Inger- 
sol was set down to respond to the following toast: 
"The volunteer soldiers of the Union army, whose 
valor and patriotism save the world a govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the 

people." 

When the name of Colonel Ingersol was mention- 
ed, he was heralded with vociferous cheering, and as 
he mounted the table at which he was sitting, it was 
increased to roars of enthusiasm. The colonel then 
bowed his recognition to the company, and spoke as 
follows : 

"When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of 
the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted 
the civilization of our century, the question, 'Will 
the great republic defend itself?' trembled on the 
lips of every lover of mankind. 

" The North, filled with intelligence and wealth, — 

93 



94 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

children of liberty, — marshaled her hosts and asked 
only for a leader. From civil life a man — silent, 
thoughtful, poised, and calm — stepped forth, and with 
the lips of victory voiced the nation's first and last 
command, 'Unconditional and immediate surrender/ 
From that moment the end was known. That utter- 
ance was the first real declaration of real war, and in 
accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty 
events, the great soldier who made it received the 
final sword of the rebellion. The soldiers of the 
republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They 
were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love 
of conquest; they fought to preserve the blessings of 
liberty and that their children might live in peace; they 
were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of 
prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of 
the future they slew the monsters of their time; they 
finished what the soldiers of the Kevolution com- 
menced ; they relighted the torch that fell from their 
august hands, and filled the world again with light; 
they blotted from the statute-books laws that had 
been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of rob- 
bers, and tore with indignant hands from the consti- 
tution that infamous clause that made them catchers 
of their fellow-men ; they made it possible for judges 
to be just, for statesmen to be humane, and for politi- 
cians to be honest ; they broke the shackles from the 
limbs of- slaves, from the souls of masters, and from 
the northern brain; they kept our country on the 
map of the world, and our flag in heaven; they rolled 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 95 

the stone from the sepulcher of progress, and found- 
ed there two angels clad in shining garments — nation- 
ality and liberty. The soldiers were the saviors of 
the nation; they were the liberators of men. In 
writing the proclamation of emancipation, Lincoln- 
greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as 
gentle as the summer air when reapers sing amid the 
gathered sheaves, — copied with the pen what Grant 
and his brave comrades wrote with their swords. 
Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the 
soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as shoreless as 
the air, battled for the rights of others, for the nobility 
of labor, fought that mothers might own" their babes, 
that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of 
patient toil, and that our country should not be a 
many-headed monster made of warring states, but a 
nation, sovereign, great and free. Blood was water, 
money was leaves, and life was only common air until 
one flag floated over a republic without a master 
and without a slave! Then was asked a question, 
* Will a free people tax themselves to pay the nation's 
debt?' 

"The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to 
their glad children, to the girls they loved. They 
went back to the fields, the shops, and the mines. 
They had not been demoralized; they had been en- 
nobled. They were as honest in peace as they had 
been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at 
reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said, '¥e 
saved the nation's life; and what is life without 



96 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

honor?' They worked and wrought, with all of 
labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should 
he redeemed. And their great leader, having put a 
shining hand of friendship — a girdle of clasped and 
happy hands — around the globe, comes home and 
finds that every promise made in war has now the 
ring and gleam of gold. 

"There is still another question: 'Will all the 
wounds of the war be healed?' I answer, Yes. The 
southern people must submit, not to the dictation of 
the North, but to the nation's will, and to the verdict 
of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will 
come when' they will say that they are victors, 
who have been vanquished by the right! Freedom 
conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their 
fields, educate their children, weave for them the 
robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their lands 
with happy homes. 

"The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well 
as the North. They made us a nation. Their vic- 
tory made us free and rendered tyranny in every 
other land as insecure as snow upon volcanic lips. 

"And now let us drink to the volunteers, to those 
who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names 
are only in the hearts of those they loved and left — - 
of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps 
of return. 

"Let us drink to those who died where lipless 
famine mocked at want; to all the maimed whose 
«cars give modesty a tongue ; to all who dared, and 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 97 

gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives; 
to all the living and to all the dead; to Sherman, to 
Sheridan, and to Grant, the foremost soldiers of the 
world; and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a 
bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of 
war ! " 



Napoleon III. 



There are few names in the history of the world, 
and certainly none in the age in which we live, that 
will shine more brilliant in future ages than Louis 
Napoleon. However much men may differ in regard 
to his ability, or any other point of his character, the 
fact can not be disputed that he has played an ex- 
traordinary role in the annals of modern Europe. 

The incidents of his life are tinged with a degree of 
romance, and are embellished with those scenes from 
which poets love to feed upon. Let us briefly look at 
the incidents of his life. He was born in the city of 
Paris, in the year 1808, and was sixty-five years of 
age when the last quiver of life departed. His father 
was Louis Bonaparte, and his mother was Hortense, 
the daughter of Josephine, the empress by a former 
marriage. The marriage of Louis Bonaparte was a 
forced one. Both parties to it were engaged to 
others. 

But Napoleon was a tyrant in his family, especially 
when political considerations seized upon his mind. 
Having no hopes of issue by the Empress Josephine 
to succeed him in his immense position, he conceived 

99 



100 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

the idea of uniting their blood by the marriage of her 
daughter with his brother, and thus their blood com- 
mingled yet would mount the throne of kings. The 
marriage was like a funeral. Of that marriage came 
forth Louis Napoleon, the second child. When he 
was born the emperor was in the height of his 
grandeur, and his birth was announced by the roaring 
of cannon from the Seine to the Vistula. 

The emperor afterward married Marie Louise, the 
daughter of the emperor of Austria, and by her had 
a son. 

When Louis was seven years old the emperor fell, 
and the towering hopes of his house were blasted by 
the battle of Waterloo and his banishment to St. 
Helena. 

In 1833, the young Prince Charles walked upon 
the throne as the heir of the Napoleon family. But 
the heirship was only what was in a great and mighty 
name, and none of the family for a quarter of a cen- 
tury had derived the least benefit from it, and Louis 
alone was the only man who estimated its power. In 
1836, with a few followers, he made a rash descent 
upon France, striking for the imperial crown at Stras- 
burg. The conspiracy spread throughout the army, 
and but for an accident it would have succeeded. As 
it was, he was captured, and, by the great leniency on 
the part of the government of Philippe, was exiled 
for one year. 

He came to the United States, and while here im- 
pressed such men as Chancellor Kent and Albert 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 101 

Gallatin with an idea of his superior talents and vast 
ambition. ISTot daunted nor disheartened by his de- 
feat, he again, in 1840, made another effort to regain 
the throne of his uncle by a descent upon the coast of 
Boulogne. Again was he unsuccessful, and was tried 
before the Chamber of Peers, and was sentenced to 
imprisonment for life in the fortress of Ham. 

These successive failures exposed him to ridicule 
from the unthinking, but not from those who looked 
below the surface of things. They saw that he was 
daring and enterprising, and had great faith in his 
destiny. He escaped from Ham in the disguise of a 
workman, and fled to England. 

He was joyful to know that the French people had 
not forgotten their affection for his family. 

He immediately unfurled his banner, and was elect- 
ed president of France by an immense majority. But 
under the constitution he was ineligible to a re-elec- 
tion; however, he managed, with the assembly, to 
overthrow the constitution, and became emperor for 
life. 

All history does not record a coup d'etat more suc- 
cessfully carried out than that. Julius Caesar never 
made a more brilliant campaign. 

From 1851 until 1870, Napoleon was dictator of 
France and ruler of Europe; and even then it took all 
the plumed and sabled knights of Prussia to over- 
throw the government which he had established. 
His reign was fraught with the greatest events, em- 
bracing the alliance with Great Britain, the humilia- 



102 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

tion of Russia, at Sebastopol, the freedom of Italy 
and its creation into one state under the king of Sar- 
dinia, and the overthrow of Austria. Fortune smiled 
upon him. During his reign France increased her 
foreign commerce; she rebuilt her cities and towns 
which had been leveled to the ground by the fires of 
war; her wasted fields were cultivated, and her wealth 
trebled; she educated her sons and daughters, and 
the roses of joy bloomed and blossomed over the 
broken cannons of war. It was said, in 1870, that 
France was one of the brightest stars in the galaxy 
of nations, and suddenly vanquished like a falling 
meteor. It was the reverses of armies abroad that 
produced this result. But for that, he would have 
succeeded his father as easily to the throne as the 
Prince of Wales will succeed his mother °in Great 
Britain. 

But it was written in the book of Fate that he 
should die in exile. 

The coincidences between him and his uncle were 
extraordinary, and may have well caused him to be- 
lieve that he was the heir of destiny. Both were 
second sons of their father. One was forty-five years 
old when he lost the imperial crown, the other forty-, 
five years old when he gained it. Both were elected 
chief-magistrates of France for a term of years ; then 
for life; and were then made emperors. Both were 
married, and had but one child each, and that a son. 
It was on the second of December that the first Napo- 
leon was declared emperor ; and on the same day of 



GEMS OP LITERATURE. 103 

f 

the month that the third Napoleon struck the blow 
which eventually gave him the crown. The first Na- 
poleon had an exile of one year, and an imprison- 
ment of six years after he lost his throne. The third 
Napoleon was exiled one year, and imprisoned six 
years before he entered upon his imperial destiny. 
Count Montholon, who shared the imprisonment of 
the uncle at St. Helena, was also the companion of 
the nephew at Ham a quarter of a century after. 
Both died upon soil under the jurisdiction of England, 
and an exile of their native land. 

No pen can describe, no painter sketch, no imagin- 
ation comprehend the experiences and feelings that 
that man experienced. He tasted of the sweets 
and bitter of fortune, saw and felt the misery and 
beauty of poverty and wealth. An exile, a prisoner, 
a president, an emperor! An author, a soldier, a 
statesman, and a legislator ! 

In his youth he was a conspirator against the in- 
terests of the Carbonavi in Italy, where his brother 
lost his life; but in age they repaid him by invading 
his provinces. 

In 1848 he was one of the special constables of 
the queen of Great Britain, voluntarily swearing 
himself in to put down the Charlists in London, and 
in 1855 was the queen's guest at Windsor Castle as 
her imperial ally of France in the war against 
Russia. 

Seven years had converted him from a lonely 
refugee to the equal of the Guelphs and the Haps- 



104 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

burg, and in return for the royal banquet at London 
gave the magnificent fetes at Paris, and without pre- 
sumption kissed her royal cheek. 

He was a man of action, a man of study, a man of 
pleasure, and in early life loved the women. But in- 
deed love for the opposite sex is indictive of pow T er 
and strength of mind and body. 

For twenty years his word was law to millions of 
people, and his worship at the shrine of Venus did 
not unfit him for wielding the thunder-bolts of 
Jupiter. 

France is divided into many and bitter parties, and 
to have seized, in their despite, the crown, and rule 
from 1848 to 1870 without scarcely feeling the shock 
of rebellious provinces, requires more than ordinary 

ability. 

Napoleon III. has written events upon the record of 
mankind which will stand until, the proudest monu- 
ments of antiquity shall have faded and crumbled to 
decay. That he made mistakes, and that he lost his 
crown, only shows that he was human. Of course 
we can not but execrate the manner in which he ob- 
tained his authority in France, but he exercised it for 
the advantages of the people more than any dynasty 
which preceded him for a century. 

Like his uncle, his reign, which shone forth so brill- 
iantly in the beginning, ended amid the deepest 
clouds of disaster. Sedan was worse than Waterloo. 
How much he was responsible for these disasters is 
not known; but we believe that France was over- 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 105 

thrown by the violence of her parties which he could 
not control. 

We will now close the life of Napoleon with a de- 
scription of his return from Elba, as taken from the 
Cincinnati Enquirer : 

On the twenty -fifth of February, 1815, the Princess 
Pauline gave a banquet to the principal inhabitants of 
the island of Elba. With great secrecy, Napoleon 
had made preparations to leave the island and return 
to France. A small brig was 'at anchor in the offing, 
and three small merchant vessels. In these four ves- 
sels, during the night, a thousand troops embarked — 
not one, not even the officers, knowing where they 
were bound. At midday, under a salute of cannon, 
the emperor went on board the brig, and the little 
fleet set sail for the invasion of France, and the over- 
throw of the throne of the Bourbons, sustained by the 
immense standing army of France, and all the allied 
armies of Europe. 

When the vessels were out of sight, Napoleon, 
gathering around him the whole ship's company of 
the brig, four hundred in number, said to them: 

" We are going to France — to Paris." 

The exultation was boundless, for, notwithstand- 
ing past reverses, every soldier had unlimited confi- 
dence in the fortunes of the emperor. The second 
day of their voyage a Bourbon man-of-war bore down 
upon them. The soldiers concealed themselves below, 
while Napoleon stood by the side of the captain on 
the quarter-deck. After the exchange of a few 

8 



106 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

words, the man-of-war inquired after the emperor at 
Elba. Napoleon seized the trumpet and shouted over 
the water : 

"He is marvelously well ! " 

Toward evening of the third day the blue hills of 
France were seen in the splendor of the setting sun. 
In the early twilight of the next morning they had 
reached the shore of the Gulf of Juan, and the em- 
peror immediately landed his followers on the lonely 
beach, and bivouacked in the olive-grove near the 
shore. Pointing to an olive-leaf, he said : 

" It is the symbol of peace. It is a lucky omen, 
and it will be realized." 

He only took men enough with him, as he said, to 
prevent his being •" collared by the police." 

Most of the day was spent in landing the troops 
and stores, and at eleven o'clock at night the little 
army, now six hundred in number, with three small 
pieces of cannon, commenced their march of seven 
hundred miles for the conquest of the capital of 
France. Fortresses on their line of march, which 
the labors of ages had strengthened, and which were 
garrisoned by two hundred thousand troops, were 
first to subdue. 

The moon shone brilliantly in a' cloudless sky. 
Traveling rapidly all night and the next day, toward 
evening they reached without opposition the little 
town of Grasse, about fifty miles distant. Here the 
peasants crowded around the emperor so enthusiastic- 
ally that he afterward said : 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 107 

"I could easily have taken two millions of these 
peasants with me to Paris." 

The next two days they advanced sixty miles to 
Digne, still encountering no foe. The next day they 
reached Grap, thirty miles further on their way. The 
enthusiasm was now so intense and universal that 
Napoleon needed no guard. 

The next day they were approaching Grenoble. A 
strong garrison was stationed there. The commander 
posted his troops, six thousand in number, in a defile 
flanked by a mountain and a lake. Napoleon, with 
his retinue, approached and rode calmly along upon a 
gentle trot until within a hundred paces of the im- 
passable wall of bayonets gleaming before him. 
Then dismounting, and folding his arms, he advanced 
to within ten paces of the troops. Every eye was fix- 
ed upon him, and there was silence as of death* 
There he stood, with the cocked hat and gray coat — 
the Little Corporal. "Fire!" shouted the command- 
ant. Not a trigger was pulled. Had there been one 1 
single man among those six thousand willing to 
shoot, he would have received boundless rewards 
from the Bourbons, and the destinies of Europe 
would have been changed. Napoleon spread open 
the lappel of his coat, uncovered his breast, and 
said: 

" Soldiers, if there is one among you who would 
kill his emperor, let him do it. Here I am." 

After a moment's silence one voice shouted out ? 
" Vive Uempereur." It was the signal for a general 



108 GEMS OF LITERATURE, 

burst of acclaim from soldiers and peasants, and for a 
scene of enthusiasm such as no other man on earth 
ever excited. All military order was at an end. The 
troops rushed in indescribable tumult around the em- 
peror, each one eager to grasp bis hand, and tears of 
joy flowed freely. The Bourbon commander put 
spurs to his horse, and disappeared. 

'■•"! have come," said Napoleon, "because I rely 
upon the people and upon you. The throne of the 
Bourbons is illegitimate; it is not raised by the voice 
of the nation. The people are threatened with the 
renewal of those feudal abuses from which your vic- 
tories had delivered them." 

Grenoble was one of the most important fortified 
cities of France. It was midnight as Napoleon ap- 
proached the walls. The commandants locked the 
gates and concealed the keys. They were powerless. 
The soldiers and people rose as one man, and, tearing 
the gates from their hinges, in a countless crowd, de- 
lirious with joy, rushed out to meet the emperor. 
With torches and illuminations, and the ringing of 
bells and frantic shouts, they conducted him to his 
quarters. 

Napoleon allowed his little band twenty-four hours 
for rest at Grenoble, and then continued his journey 
toward Lyons. His path was thronged with rejoicing 
thousands, while bonfires blazed all night long on the 
adjacent hills. The intelligence of his landing had 
now reached Paris, and the Bourbons were in con- 
sternation. Lyons, containing 200,000 inhabitants, 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 109 

• 

was but 250 miles from the capital. There were 
three regiments stationed there, and, in addition, 
20,000 of the National Guard, well disciplined and 
armed. But soldiers and officers all alike shouted, , 
"Vive I'empereur!" and the whole city, like an inun- 
dation, surged from the gates to meet him. Never 
betore had the streets of Lyons witnessed such a de- 
lirium of joy. Here Napoleon remained three days, 
organizing anew his government, and attending to 
the myriad cares involved in governing a nation of 
30,000,000 of people, and in preparing to meet the 
2,000,000 ot troops which allied Europe had in arms 
against him. 

On the thirteenth of March he resumed his move- 
ment toward Paris. Tie had now entered the most 
populous regions of France. The roads were every- 
where lined with crowds. Triumphal arches spanned 
the streets of every village, while a continuous roar 
of acclaim accompanied every step. At Chalons he 
was surprised to see several artillery-pieces and, am- 
munition-wagons approaching. "They were sent by 
the Bourbons," said the populace, " to oppose you. 
We have taken them and offer them to you as a 
present." 

It was no longer necessary to take any precautions 
for his safety, and he drove rapidly on, as defenseless 
as a private gentleman. On the sixteenth, in his open 
barouche, he drove sixty miles, from Autun to Ava- 
lon. At Auxerre, twenty-live miles farther along, he 
met Marshal New Here the marshal abandoned the 



110 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Bourbons and joined the emperor, an abandonment 
which subsequently cost him his life. 

On the nineteenth the emperor traveled seventy- 

. five miles to Fountainbleau. It was, however, four 

o'clock in the morning before he reached the 



ace. He was now within forty miles of the 
metropolis. The terrified Bourbons had fled to seek 
the protection of the armies of northern Europe. 
They had, however, established at Melun, half way 
between Fontainebleau and Paris, a formidable force 
of nearly one hundred thousand troops, here intend- 
ing to make their last stand. The royal army was 
drawn up in three lines, the intervals and flanks being 
armed with batteries, to contest the advance of Napo- 
leon and his open barouche. About two o'clock in 
the afternoon the expectant army saw a carriage, fol- 
lowed by a few horsemen, descending a distant hill. 
The moment they discerned the cocked hat and gay 
surtout of the emperor all was over with them. Pent- 
up love and enthusiasm burst all bounds. " Vive 
I } empereur /" in thunder peals resounded from rank to 
rank. They pushed to meet their emperor. He leap- 
ed from his carriage to receive them. Can pen or 
pencil describe the scene ? We must leave it in de- 
spair. 

The emperor now continued his progress to Paris, 
accompanied and followed by a crowd which no man 
could number. It was nine o'clock in the evening 
when he entered Paris and drove into the court-yard 
of the Tuileries. The moment the carriage stopped 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. Ill 

he was seized by those next the door, borne aloft in 
their arms, amid deafening cheers, through a dense 
and brilliant crowd of epaulets, hurried literally 
above the heads of the throng, up the great staircase 
into the saloon of reception, where a splendid array 
of the imperial court, adorned with a profusion of 
violet bouquets, half concealed in the richest laces, 
received him with transports, and imprinted fervent 
kisses on his cheeks, his hands, and even his dress- 
Never was such a scene witnessed in history. 



An Historical Relict. 



Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore, wife of Je- 
rome Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon L, 
died in 1873. Her history is an interesting one, and 
carries us far back into the history of the past. She 
was the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Balti- 
more, and possessed great personal beauty and attrac- 
tions. In fact, she was the "reigning belle" of the 
age and day in which she lived. Jerome Bonaparte 
had been sent by his brother — -then the first consul of 
France — to sea, in a man-of-war; and in the course of 
his cruise she touched and lay for some time off the 
coast of the United States. While at Baltimore, he 
saw Miss Patterson, and immediately became deeply 
and favorably impressed with her appearance. He 
sued for her hand and heart, and won them ; and the 
marriage was celebrated in due form by the Catholic 
bishop of that diocese. 

J. 

In a few weeks the news of the marriage reached 
Napoleon ; and it threw him into a paroxysm of rage. 
He was about that time contemplating his ascension 
to the throne of France, as emperor, and was anxious 

113 



114 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

to steady his throne by family alliances with the royal 
families of the continent. 

He considered Jerome a power of value in his hands. 
But what was to be done? How could the marriage 
be set aside? He determined to do it under a law 
which had been passed during his consulate, — that his 
consent, as the head of the royal family, was required 
to all the marriages that every member of it made; 
and it was now withheld. Jerome, who, pleased with 
the beauty and accomplishments of his wife, had an- 
ticipated great pleasure in introducing her into the 
gay society of Paris, found that he would not even be 
permitted to have her land upon French soil. 

She, therefore, stopped in England, while her hus- 
band endeavored to mitigate the decree of his 3tern 
and formidable brother. But that was impossible; 
Napoleon's will in anything was unchangeable. 

Jerome was either to give up his wife, or forfeit his 
friendship with Napoleon and the brilliant destiny and 
the royal alliance which the latter had marked out for 
him. To his 'shame and disgrace, he accepted the 
latter; and soon his nuptials were solemnized with 
Catherine, the daughter of the king of Wurtemburg. 
Of course, the suppliant courts of France very coolly 
pronounced his marriage with Miss Patterson as il- 
legal. That lady returned to Baltimore, and never 
saw her faithless husband again. A son was born to 
her, from whom have descended a number of young 
Bonapartes of this generation. In the days of Louis 
Hapoleon's ascendancy in France they visited Paris, 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 115 

and were made officers in the French army, and were 
treated in all respects as near relatives of the imperial 

family. 

Jerome was made king of Westphalia, a new state 
which Napoleon created out of the spoils of conquered 
Prussia, and which went down in the terrible wreck 
that overtook the mighty conqueror after the Russian 

campaign. 

The weak conduct of Jerome in yielding to his 
brother's dictation affords a marked contrast to the 
courage of his other brother, Lucien, in resisting his 
decree. He was married to the daughter of a mer- 
chant of Lyons. He was asked to obtain a divorce 
from her, in order to form another union connecting 
the plebeian Bonapartes with the families of crowned 

heads. 

He, too, was threatened with the imperial displeas- 
ure and punishment in case of refusal. He dared the 
worst, and although next to Napoleon, the most tal- 
ented of the family, obtained no recognition from the 
emperor; and when the storm came that shattered all 
of the latter's creations, he was living in England, a 
country at war with his brother's government, and 
against which, of all nations, his brother was the most 
hostile. What were the royal and fleeting honors of 
Jerome compared to the reputation for integrity which 
history will associate with the name of Lucien Bona- 
parte? By his second marriage, with the d tughter of 
the king of Wurtemburg, Jerome had two children, — 
a son and daughter,— both of whom were conspicu- 



116 GEMS OF LITERATURE. . 

ous characters in the days of the second empire. One 
was the Princess Mathilda, and the other was the 
Prince Napoleon, who was lately ordered out of 
France hy M. Thiers' administration. 



The Fate of the Earth. 



The Scientific American lately had an ingeuius and 
readable article on the probable fate of this globe, the 
writer taking the ground, and supporting it by astro- 
nomical investigation, that its destiny was to come 
in collision with the moon, and that the two planeta 
would fuse into one after their destruction. Then, 
again, we are told that we are gravitating toward the 
sun, and will at last fall like an inconsiderable pebble 
into that great source of light and heat. Other savans 
believe that at the end of each period of about 10,000 
years the waters cover the earth, and the ocean 
rolls from pole to pole, in one wide and immense 
expanse. 

These speculations in astronomy and geology to 
throw light on the destiny of this planet are about 
as vain as the inquiring into the origin of existence, 
or the original springing of evil out of good. They 
all belong to a class of questions which are as far be- 
yond man's reason to comprehend as the infinite is 
above the finite. The litile light which we obtain 
only renders the surrounding darkness more visible. 

117 



118 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

The trouble is, we can not obtain the first quantity in 
our proposition. It is like trying to move the earth 
by the motive-power of the lever without a place for 
the fulcrum to rest. Man knows nothing of his 
own origin, or that of the globe upon which he 
stands. 

He only knows that both are mere atoms or specks 
upon the inconceivable immensity of existence. In- 
teresting as abstraction, but profitless, in fact are all 
the efforts to define the stupenduous mysteries of be- 
ing, and the forces of nature connected with it. 

The greatest astronomer of modern times confessed: 
that he had been only playing on the edge of the 
great sea of speculation and learning that was beyond 
his vision. The great Source of all intelligence has 
seen fit to put that knowledge in a sealed book, whose 
leaves no mortal can ever open ; or, if opened in part, 
it is only to reveal greater mysteries, and in greater 
masses. 

They are questions connected with eternity, not 
time ; and only the incalculable length of the one will 
enable us to fully comprehend the stupendous mys- 
tery of the other. 

In an examination of such subjects language fails, 

for we have now symbols to properly represent our 

ideas, and make them plain to the mental vision. 

.Skepticism can doubt, can offer objections; but it can 

not aid us in taking one step to solve the mystery. 

Whether the earth will be burned up, be submerged 
by a deluge, be whisked off' into inconceivable space, 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 119 

or be destroyed by a collision with another planet, will 
only be known when the catastrophe happens. It 
may be that we are liable to all these contingencies; 
but the superintending power which brought these 
agencies i'nto being may govern them and render them 
harmless. 



American Literature. 



The time once was when it was tauntingly asked, 
as an insulting question, by English literary critics 
through the columns of their reviews, " Who reads 
an American book?" Everything emanating from 
an author on this side of the Atlantic was sure to 
meet with an unfavorable reception by being criticised 
with merciless severity, and held up to ridicule and 
censure by those who were looked upon as judges in 
the literary circles of Great Britain. Language was 
almost inadequate for them to express their contempt 
for the productions of American authors, and when 
they condescended to notice the fact of their publica- 
tion at all, it was with the keenest irony, the bitterest 
sarcasm, and the harshest denunciation and reproach 
of which the Saxon idiom is capable. 

To judge from their reviews, one would have sup- 
posed that it was quite impossible for an American 
author to write a book worthy of being read by those 
who had any appreciation of literary merit. 

We were set down as a nation of vulgar traffickers, 
whose only thought and desire was mercenary gain; 
that the public mind ail run in that direction; and- 
9 121 



122 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

that among such a people literature would not flourish 
to any extent. We were so wholly engrossed in 
those concerns — of a purely pecuniary and physical 
nature— as to afford no scope for the cultivation of 
a correct literary taste, and the consequence was that 
we were entirely destitute of it. Often was the asser- 
tion made that we had no national literature, that the 
authors that we had produced were mere servile copy- 
ists of third and fourth rate writers on the continent 
of Europe. 

When anything was written to the disparagement 
of the United States, and our deficiencies were com- 
mented upon and held up to the gaze of the world in 
the British press, our literature was always sure to 
come in for the greatest share of condemnation ; and 
It was an ever-standing subject for gibes and sneers. 

When an American abroad attempted to defend his 
country from the attacks which were made upon his 
character, and dwelt with a just pride upon its un- 
paralleled progress in everything that constitutes na- 
tional advancement, and pointed to Washington, 
Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and other dead heroes 
and statesmen who were worthy of general admira- 
tion, and would also refer to the noble deeds of our 
soldiers and sailors, and some of their grandest 
achievements, he was always answered by some sar- 
castic allusion to the poverty of our literature. 

There was a bitter truth mixed with a great deal of 
falsehood in those taunts, for, being a young nation 
that had just thrown off the badge of colonial servi- 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 123 

tude, recently entering upon the grand experiment of 
personal freedom, the effort that had been required to 
bring this about had called men from their studies 
and made them buckle on their armor in defense of 
their country, thus turning their attention in a polit- 
ical line, to the exclusion of those pursuits of which 
old England loves to boast. In this respect the United 
States but followed the example of all the great na- 
tions of ancient and modern times, as the student in 
history is well aware ; for it was not in the infant 
nationalities of Greece and Rome, France and 
England, that those great literary productions for 
which they are distinguished were written that have 
been admired by the world ever since as models of 
their kind. 

It was not until after the time of Scipio and Caesar 
that Rome began to excel in literature, as she had 
previously in arms. She had to conquer the world 
before Tacitus could write the history of her marital 
exploits. 

It was live hundred years after the Norman con- 
quests before England could produce a Shakespeare, 
and still later before she gave birth to a Milton. 

National materials in history and poesy have to be 
acquired, and must precede the birth of the poet and 
historian. 

The British critics and reviewers entirely ignored 
these facts when they indulged in such harsh censures 
upon American literature but a few years ago. 

It was then in its infancy, and they seemed to make 



124 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

no calculation upon the fact that it was destined to 
have a vigorous maturity. We are making rapid ad- 
vancements toward that period, and within the last 
quarter of a century works of a literary character 
have been given to the world 'from this side of the 
Atlantic that are worthy of general admiration. 

A galaxy of American authors has shone re- 
splendently in the literary firmament, and has dis- 
puted the palm of existence with the best writers of 
the European continent. 

In the department of prose fiction we have pro- 
duced a Cooper, whose tales and truthful descriptions 
of the American forest and its aboriginal inhabitants 
are so life-like as to give them a deathless immor- 
tality. With his magic pen he has been enabled to 
throw a wand of interest around the American back- 
woodsman and the untutored savage, and we peruse 
Ms narration of their struggles in the forest with a 
zest and animation that never flags for one moment 
from the beginning to the end of his volumes. 

Not even the triumphs of the crusaders decked out 
in the pages of romance, or the gorgeous coloring of 
the times of chivalry, although the incidents connect- 
ed with them are eminently calculated to captivate 
the human imagination, weaved together by the skill 
of Walter Scott, make a greater impression upon the 
readers than the simple narratives of the "Pioneer 
and Pathfinder." 

The "Leather Stockings" tales are not unworthy 
of a comparison with "Waverly Novels," admitted 



GEMS OF LITERATUKE. 125 

to be the most fascinating works of fiction of their 
class that Great Britain has ever produced. The ap- 
preciation which has been bestowed in France upon 
Mr. Cooper as the Walter Scott of America, convey- 
ing as it does a high compliment to his literary abil- 
ity, is not unmerited, for lie has succeeded in immor- 
talizing the forests of his native country quite as suc- 
cessfully as the "Wizard of the North" did the 
Highlands of Scotland. He has already taken his 
place among the greatest novelist of the age. His 
works have been translated into almost every Euro- 
pean language, and it was not long since we noticed 
the fact that they had found their way into oriental 
Persia. 

Ill poetry, not to mention others, we have a Bryant 
and a Longfellow, who, in everything that constitutes 
great poets, surpass any Englishmen that have writ- 
ten since the days of Byron. 

There is a beauty in the measured cadences of their 
verse, — a general chasteness and purity of style that 
always attracts the attention of those who peruse the 
productions of their brilliant fancy and fertile imag- 
ination. 

One would have to search pretty closely the English 
classics from the time of Chaucer to Byron to find 
poetical extracts more eloquent than some we could 
quote from the volumes they have given to the world. 
The literary merits of our Washington Irving have 
been so generally admired that it is hardly necessary 
to allude to his name as one of the most distin- 



126 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

guished authors that has written for the last thirty- 
years in the English language. 

The author of the "Sketch-Book" has acquired a 
world-wide reputation. 

In the department of historical composition Amer- 
ica has already such names to boast of as Bancroft, 
Prescott, and Motley, whose works will rank among 
the best specimens of the literature of the nineteenth 
century, and who, whether we consider their accuracy 
and fidelity as chroniclers of faith, — that first requi- 
site of a great historian, — or the beauty of style in 
which they are narrated, are equally worthy of praise 
and admiration. 

Had the United States produced no other names 
than those we have mentioned, they would be abun- 
dantly sufficient to redeem our literature from the as- 
persions that were once cast upon it by British critics 
and reviewers, and to give the world assurance that 
before many years have passed this country will be 
as much noted for the ability of its authors as it is for 
its rapid progress in the more material departments of 
civilization. 



The Drums, the Stage, i the Pulpit. 



The Iiev. DeWitt C. Talmage, of New York, has 
lately been delivering what is known as a sensational 
sermon upon the subject of the theaters and the drama, 
which are considered by him to be exceedingly de- 
moralizing in their tendency and effect upon society. 
There is, no doubt, much corruption and perversion 
of what passes for or in lieu of the legitimate drama. 

There is much that panders to a vitiated and de- 
praved taste which is radically opposed to the origi- 
nal idea of a theater. 

The stage was not designed as a place where semi- 
nude females could be exhibited with propriety, nor 
where the physical and animal passions were to find 
their stimulant and provocation. It was intended, on 
the contrary, to be a forum where, in the form of dia- 
logue and representation of life, appeals could be made 
to the more generous emotions of the human heart, 
where intellectual inspiration could be encouraged, 
where the evils of vice could be portrayed with force 
and effect, and the practice of virture appear in that 
light which is demanded not only by personal, but 
lie interests. To obtain these ends, the most emi- 

127 



128 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

nent writers that the world has ever known have 
given the sanction of their name and labors to the 
drama, and have evinced their appreciation of the su- 
periority of the stage as a medium of public instruc- 
tion. The beauty of the stage consists in this, that 
it combines action with sentiment; and thus it makes 
a far greater impression, because to the sense of hear- 
ing is added the far greater one of seeing. Take, for 
instance, Shakespeare's plays. Even their greatest 
admirers have but a feeble idea of them from the mere 
reading of the text. Shakespeare's characters are 
living; and to be appreciated they must be seen,— 
the breathing ideal in the breathing actor. The world 
has undergone every sort of change in the character 
of its amusements, except one. The drama has never 
gone out of fashion. It is in vogue now. It was in 
vogue three thousand years ago ; and it will be in vogue 
as long as time shall last. It is so because it combines 
amusement with instruction. 

It diverts, it absorbs, it entrances, and at the same 
time conveys useful lessons. We doubt whether the 
pulpit itself has been a greater instrumentality to cre- 
ate a detestation of vice and a love of virtue than the 
stage. 

Even an audience of the strongest character in list- 
ening to the drama, in following the threads of its 
connection, instinctively breaks out with applause at 
the uttera-nce of noble sentiments, or is thrilled with 
emotion at the performance of a heroic and generous 
act. The spectators love to see hypocrisy unmasked 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 129 

and fidelity rewarded. Therefore it is that men go 
away from a theater where a genuine drama has been 
played elevated and improved, if they are susceptible 
of such influences. The theater has always been a 
true reflector — a mirror as it were — of public taste and 
public virtue. As the people deteriorate in morality, 
the stage degenerates in respectability. It is because 
our people are corrupt, or at least that large masses 
of them are so, that honesty, frugality, and decency 
are not the rule, and that we owe the fact that an ex- 
hibition of half-naked women has taken the place of 
the honest intellectual genius. It has been so at dif- 
ferent historic periods — -was very marked at the time 
and during the reign of King Charles I. in Great 
Britain from 1660 to 1685. 

Then the demoralization of the stage was beyond 
all precedent, or of imitation since. The popular 
plays written at that period, by their obscene and in- 
decent language, and by their execution on the stage, 
were hardly lit to be witnessed in a modern brothel. 
We refer particularly to the plays of Cangoreve and 
Wycherly and their contemporaries. The stage 
needs reformation in its present management : but we 
must first reform the people, and render them more 
virtuous "before any good can be eflected. As long as 
thousands of people w T ill go to see the "Black 
Crook," to where hundreds will listen to the most 
sublime renditions of our greatest dramas by our 
most brilliant actors and actresses, it is not to be ex- 
pected that theater managers in this money-worship- 



130 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

ing age will forego the opportunity and sacrifice 
money profit for principle. 

The stage must be reformed by agencies outside of 
itself. It is the business of the press and the pulpit, 
and in this connection we have a word of advice to 
give to the latter. What is desired is the pruning of 
the tree, not the cutting of it down, as would appear 
to be the desire of the Rev. DeWitt Talmage. 

In other words, we must reform abuses and elevate 
the standard of the drama, rather than destroy it. 

The question is being seriously agitated whether 
the " coming man will attend church:" but no one 
will seriously question whether he will attend the the- 
ater. So the only thing we can do is to make the 
theater a good and not a bad place for him to go. 

Dr. Talmage as against theaters, as a means to de- 
stroy them, would employ agencies as little likely to 
effect this purpose as a discharge of peas from a pop- 
gun would penetrate the sides of a modern frigate. 
Our clerical friend seems to suppose that there is some- 
thing in the theaters very bad, because they exaggerate 
the sentiments and emotions of human nature, and 
lay bare its weaknesses. If we accept this plea as 
valid, it would exterminate the whole class of sensa- 
tional preachers, to which Mr. Talmage belongs. 

They are nothing but actors in the pulpit. They 
put everything in the most superlative light. Their 
illustrations are extravagant; and their arguments 
founded upon them partake of the same character. 

If they do not personate the individuality, they 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 131 

draw pictures of vice of the most seductive nature, 
which leaves an impression upon the mind that their 
feeble attempts to diminish do not in the least weaken. 
As to the integrity of the leading actors and actresses, 
it is most unjustly assailed by the sensational preach- 
ers. In every respect the followers of the drama can 
well compare reputation for honor and virtue with 
those who occupy pulpits, from which latter class 
there are as many lapses as from the performers on 
the stage. 

While Miss Cushman, as the head of the histrionic 
profession, was closing a long life after a triumphal 
benefit tendered her by the leading citizens of New 
York, Henry Ward Beecher, the champion of sensa- 
tional preachers, was being tried for the seduction of 
his friend's wife. 

We commend the contrast to Dr. Talmage as an ad- 
monition that the less he says about an institution 
being weakened by the misconduct of its principal 
agents, if that is right in itself, the better. 



Educated in a Normal. 



Of late years there has been a mania all over this 
country for normal schools. Young persons have 
rushed into them by the thousands, expecting in eight 
or ten weeks to obtain education enough to teach a 
country school. But how many sad hearts return — 
only to fail at the next examination! There is no 
doubt but that the foundation upon which an educa- 
tion in a normal is obtained is the true one. The only 
true method to get an education is by letting the mind 
run according to its natural tendencies, aided and 
assisted by your better judgment. If a person does 
not want to attend church, and you force him to,— as 
all our colleges do,— the most fervent prayers will fail 
to have an effect. Therefore, I apprehend that all 
force-rule in school is to the detriment of the pupil. 
The mind of man loves to be free and independent; 
and if a person has a pious and religious inclination, 
and you begin to place fetters upon him and crush his 
feet iu iron boots, he will begin to sacrifice his relig- 
ion to show the world that he \sfree. 

Iu all normal schools your feet aud hands are not 

133 



134 OEMS OF LITERATURE. 

chained to the earth, nor manacles placed upon your 
body; and your mind is as free to widen and expand 
as the boundless realms of air. It is here that true 
genius can take its lofty flights; here that poverty is 
upon the same footing as the sons of the wealthiest 
nabob ; here that each and every student stands upon 
Ms own merits. Upon your arrival at the town in 
which the school is situated you will feel lonesome 
and discouraged ; and if your vocal organs are in good 
condition, you will likely hum the good old song : 

" There is no one here to love me, 
No one here to mourn for me." 

But when you enter the principal's office you will 
feel at home, because you can never find a principal 
of a normal school but what he is sociable, friendly, 
and accommodating. As I said before, the question 
is, How shall I get my education in the shortest time 
possible ? It has often been said that the secret of the 
whole thing is, Study. Ah, but I have seen young ladies 
and gentlemen sick with study, and their brains all in 
an uproar ; and yet their progress was slow. It re- 
quires something more than study. There must be 
judgment, determination, perseverance, will-power. 
Push. A man who fails to push will never penetrate 
the mysteries of the unseen ; and this, above all things^ 
is required in a normal. 

Be active, be energetic, and you will soon attract 
the attention of the professor. Always be ready to 
rise to your feet when called upon. How often have 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 135 

I called over the names of pupils, and they would be 
in the class and not respond to their names. Never 
fail to rise to your feet when called upon, even if you 
can not answer the question. It does the professor 
good to look into your smiling face and see that you 
are willing. 

Endeavor to perform every work assigned, because 
the teacher knows what is best. Time and time again 
have I heard students remark that they would 
not do so and so, because it would never do them any 
good. When you hear a student make remarks of 
that kind, you may form the opinion that he never 
gets anything. When you enter the normal, make a 
determination that you will not suffer yourself to be- 
come unclean, ungentlemanly, and uncouth. It is not 
necessary tnat your clothes be of the finest broadcloth 
in order to make a gentleman of you. You can be a 
gentleman with only jeans to hide your nakedness; 
but you must not let that jeans become greasy and 
dirty. 

Cultivate your language, above all things. We 
judge whether or not a person is intelligent by the 
language which he uses, Throw away all slang words 
and phrases, and let nothing but the purest and sim- 
plest words of the English language pass your lips. 
Be pure in thought. There is nothing that will tell 
quicker upon your intellectual faculties than base and 
degrading thoughts. One thing alone that stupefies 
the brightest thoughts of our students is the practic- 
ing of bad habits. Study the ways of the world, and 



136 GEMS OP LITERATURE. 

learn the rules of society. Do not be foppish, but 
always be manly and dignified. Occasionally ask the 
professor's advice on any subject that you may need 
some light; but never bore him when he is busy. 

Take a few studies only, and understand them well ; 
and let those studies bear directly upon the object for 
which you are studying. If you expect to be a teacher, 
let your energies and line of thought run in that di- 
rection. 

Do not waste your time in thinking about the girls, 
nor the girls about the boys, and the laurels of victo- 
ry will crown your efforts. 



Friends in Misfortune. 



It is said that the only persons who showed any 
commisseration for the fallen dictator of New York 
—Wra. M. Tweed- — were some of the poorer class of 
people. Those whom he assisted by his favors, and 
who shared in many instances surreptitiously his ill- 
gotten gains, were the first to desert him and the most 
eager in his attack. Rich men who coveted him in 
the days of his prosperity, when Fortune showered 
her favors, and when he was well known to be cor- 
rupt and dishonest, as he is now, accost him either 
with averted eye or frowning brows. 

They are not in the least shocked or softened by the 
immensitv of ruin which has overtaken him, and the 
prodigious height from which he fell. 

Nor do any emotions of gratitude animate their 
hearts. The world — that is, the popular and fashion- 
able portion, — worships success. It bows before that 
shrine. They smile and frown on the rascal who suc- 
ceeds in the same measure that they denounce the 
rascal who is unsuccessful. There was always more- 
constancy and devotion from men in humble life than 
10 137 



138 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

from the wealthier class to those who have fallen from 
prosperity to adversity. 

Nor is it difficult to account for it upon philosophical 
principles. The good or evd opinion of the world 
does not strike those as sensibly who have a hard lot 
to endure in it, and to whom lite has comparatively 
but few pleasures, as those who shine in the upper 
circles ot society. 

They are endowed, of course, with greater sympa- 
thies for those who have been suddenly plunged from 
affluence into a condition even worse than their own. 
Those who have in the greatest profusion honors and 
riches are the feeblest when a stand is required against 
the thunder of indignation and the behests of power. 
An historical instance of this may be cited. Those 
who are conversant with the French annals were al- 
ways forcibly struck with the ingratitude and treach- 
ery ot the marshals and other great dignitaries of the 
first Emperor Napoleon, whom from the humblest or- 
igin he had risen to the highest rank and endowed 
with large pecuniary fortunes. 

As soon as the empire began to totter, and the fu- 
ture looked dark and threatening, these men began 
to desert and throng the saloons of his rivals, the 
Bourbons. 

But the rank and file of the army were even truer 
than ever, and more sympathetic with the emperor 
when he was on the eve of his banishment to the is- 
land of Elba tl an they had been when the sunlight 
of fortune most brilliantly illuminated his banners. 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 13& 

When iii the succeeding year he came back from Elba, 
it was the private soldiers and the lower grade of of- 
ficers who at once deserted the king, into whose serv- 
ice they had been forced, to range themselves on the 
side of their truest friend. Many of the marshals and 
high civil dignitaries stood aloof; and when Napoleon 
reached Paris they retired from the country. Others 
reluctantly gave in their adhesion, being really coerced 
into it by the troops of the line. 

When the nobility of England were parleying with 
Cromwell, and turned a cold shoulder to the young 
kin^, Charles Stuart, after his defeat at the battle of 
Worcester, and when he was compelled to flee for his 
life, maid-servants and plow-boys, to whom he made 
himself known, kept the secret of his different dis- 
guises, and escorted him for weeks safely through the 
country until be emb irked for the continent. The 
fact that there was a high price offered for his head 
or his arrest did not change the fidelity of these hum- 
ble and faithful friends. When the throne of Louis 
the XVL, of France, was falling beneath the blows 
of the revolution, when the noblemen and the higher 
classes fled the country without striking a blow, the 
peasantry of La Vmdee came to the rescue, and made 
a fight for the old regime which in its vigor is almost 
unparalelled in history. All are aware of the fact 
that long after sentiments of devotion to the exiled 
house of Stuarts had been suppressed in the hearts of 
the gentry and aristocracy of Great Britain, their 
memory was cherished as a household word by the 



140 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

Highlanders of Scotland, whose gallant efforts for 
their restoration were continued until the family be- 
came extinct. 

There is hardly anything more romantic than the 
narrative of the escape of Prince Charles Edward 
Stuart from Scotland, after the battle of Calladen, in 
1745, when for a long time he was dependent for se- 
curity upon the truth and affection of the poor but 
generous Highlanders. The records of the past are 
full of such instances. 



Words Upon Dying Lips. 



how some of the great men of earth met the 
King of Terrors. 



Queen Elizabeth, at the end of a most prosperous 
reign, begun amid dangers and many difficulties that 
were overcome by bold measures and prudent coun- 
cils, died exclaiming, " Ah, my possessions for a mo- 
ment of time." George IV. met death with almost a 
jest upon his lips. Turning to Sir Waltern Waller, 
on whose arm he leaned, he said, " Whatty, what is 
this? It is death, my boy, and they have deceived 
us." The Danish sovereign, Frederick V., greatly 
beloved by his subjects, cried, " There is not a drop 
of blood on my hands," as he passed away. Henry 
VIII., who had altered the whole course of monastic 
life in England, exclaims, "Monks! Monks! Monks !" 
Edward VI., the wan boy-king, with his fast-fading 
eyes, commended his soul to God, "Lord, take my 
spirit; " and Cromwell, as he listened to the discourse 

141 



142 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

of those about him, said, "Then I am safe," aud was 
silent forever. 

The last word of Charles I. on the scaffold, to 
Archbishop Juxson, was, "Remember," referring to 
his desire that his son Charles should forgive his fa- 
ther's murderers. Anne Boleyn, in the same terrible 
situation, clasped her fair neck, saying, "It is small, 
very small ;" and Sir Thomas Moore, as he yielded 
himself to the executioner, said, with sorry wit, "For 
my coming down let me shift for myself." Joan of 
Arc, at the stake, ended her eventful, stormy life with 
our Savior's name upon her lips, as brave as General 
Wolf, who, dying in the midst of victory on the bat- 
tle-field, and hearing of the enemy's retreat, cried, 
"What! do they run already? Then I die happy;" 
or Sir Philip Sidney, after he had relinquished the 
draught of water to a humbler comrade, though 
parched with thirst, turned him round to die, saying, 
" Let me behold the end of this world with all its 
vanities." 

Mirabeau desired to die while delicious strains of 
music floated on the air, but his last utterance was a 
demand for laudanum to drown pain and conscious- 
ness. Mozart's last words were, " Let me hear once 
more those notes so long my solace and delight ;" 
but Haydn, forgetful of his art, cried, "God 
preserve my emperor." Alfieri's sympathetic nature 
displayed itself in the words, "Clasp my hand, dear 
friend; I die." Goethe cries, " Light, more light;" 
Tasso, "In tuos manos, Domine;" Byron, "Come, 



GEMS OF LITERATURE. 143 

come, no weakness; let's be a man to the last; I must 
sleep now." And those who saw his embalmed body 
in 1824, when brought to England from Missolonghi 
in the Florida, and removed to Sir Edward Knatch- 
bulFs house in Great George Street, where the coffin 
was opened, describe the face as of marble whiteness, 
the expression that of stern quietude, lying wrapped 
in his blue-cloth cloak, rhe throat and head uncovered, 
crisp, curling locks, slightly streaked with gray, clus- 
tering over the temples, the profile of exceeding beau- 
ty. Boileau congratulated himself, as he closed his 
eyes upon this world, upon the purity of his works, 
saying, "It is a great consolation to a poet about to 
die that he has never written anything injurious to 
virtue;" and Sir Walter Scott, little thinking his end 
so near, said, "I feel as if I were myself again." 

Dr. Johnson, the rough, kind heart, who loved a 
good hater, died as he said to Miss Morris, "God bless 
you, my dear." Washington, dying at Mt. Vernon, 
cried, "It is well." Franklin's last words were, "A 
dying man can do nothing easily." Mad. de Stael, 
whose sorest trial was her enforced absence from her 
native land, died saying, "I have loved my God, my 
father, and my liberty." 

Hannah More's last words were, "Patty — joy;" 
Grotius, "Be serious;" Haller, "The artery ceases to 
beat;" Adams, "Independence forever;" Jefferson, 
"I resign my soul to God, my daughter to my coun- 
try; " Locke, to Lady Masham, who was reading the 
Psalms, "Cease now ; " and poor Lamb, after the most 



144 GEMS OF LITERATURE. 

self-sacrificing existence, wrote his last words to a 
friend, " My bedfellows are cramp and cough — we 
three sleep in a bed.'" 

Bishop Broughton's last words were, " Let the earth 
be filled with his glory;" Archbishop Sharpe, "I 
shall be happy ; " Bishop Ken, " God's will be done ; " 
Farr, Cranmer, Hooper, and George Herbert, "Lord, 
receive my spirit;" and these are but few of many 
such utterances. The Prince Consort confirmed the 
impression that prevails that the dying have some- 
times a foretaste of coming happiness. " I have such 
sweet thoughts," were the last words of a most noble 
Ufe. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



Walter Sayler & Co. 

EATON, OHIO. 



Have just published one of the most practical works on School 
Government ever presented to teachers. 

The Lectures are brilliant and spicy, giving the young teacher an 
idea of how he should begin a school, and conduct it to the satisfac- 
tion of himself and patrons. 

It consists of 

SEVENTEEN LECTURES, 

Of which the following are some : 
" How Teachers Should Talk." 
"What Teachers Should Study." 

"Vigilance." 

11 Organization of a School." 
And many other subjects which are well worth your time and 
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Send seventy-five cents in postage-stamps and get the book. 
Address, 

WALTER SAYLER & CO., 

EATON, OHIO. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



Walter Sayler & Co., 



EATON, OHIO. 



LAW. 

Persons having business in any of the courts of this state can have 
it promptly and liberally attended to if intrusted to our care. No 
fee in advance. 



ABSTRACTS OF TITLES. 

One half of the titles to land in this county are defective; and 
persons buying land should see that the title is clear, free, and unin- 
cumbered. 

We make abstracts giving the condition the title is in for $2.00. 

Deeds, Mortgages, and Conveyancing promptly and neatly done. 

LAND -^WARRANTS. 

. 
Survivors of all wars from 1790 to 1850, or their heirs, are entitled 
to one hundred and sixty acres of land. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



We procure land-warrants, buy them, and give instructions in the 
assignment of 

PATENTS. 

Persons wishing to procure Patents are invited to correspond with 
us. No charge for preliminary examination. If Patent is obtained, 
$25.00. Government fee, $35 00. 

COPYRIGHTS. 

We procure Copyrights on short notice. Total costs, including our 
fees, $5.00. 

BOUNTY. 

All soldiers of the late war, who were discharged for wounds, 
rupture, or any bodily injury, not disease, are entitled to the full 
amount of bounty they would have received had they served their 
' time out. 

Soldiers who re-enlisted for three years from January 1, 1863, and 
April 1, 1864, having previously served nine months, are entitled to 
$400.00 bounty. 

Soldiers who enlisted for three years prior to July 22, 1861, and 
were mustered prior to August 6, 1861, are entitled to $100.00 bounty, 
regardless of the time served. 

Those who enlisted for three years prior to July 4, 1864, and have 
received, or are entitled to receive, $100.00 bounty, are entitled to the 
additional $100.00 of the act of July 28, 1866. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



Persons thinking themselves entitled to bounty should write us, 
giving the facts in the case, and will we give an immediate reply. 
Please inclose stamp for reply. 

PENSIONS. 

All soldiers and sailors disabled in the army, in the line of duty, 
during the late war by wounds, accidents, or any disease are entitled 
to a pension. 

Widows, whose husbands were killed in the service, or died from 
the effects of diseases contracted while in the service, are entitled to 
a pension. 

The children of soldiers can get pensions until they become sixteen 
years of age. 

Pensioners who have been dropped from the pension-rolls can be 
restored. 

Pension laws are more liberal now than formerly, and many sol- 
diers are entitled to receive a higher rate of pension than they now 
receive. 

Our fees in such cases are what the law allows us. 

CLAIMS IN THE OLD COUNTRY. 

There are many persons living in this country who have money 
coming to them from the old country, and which can be procured as 
has been done in many cases. 

Any person who thinks there is any money due him, if he will send 
as one dollar we will give full particulars in regard to the matter, and 
answer any questions. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



Kansas Normal College, 

FORT SCOTT, KANSAS. 



This flourishing institution has just received a munificent gift of 
building and grounds from the city of Fort Scott. 

The unsurpassed healthfulness of the location, the practical char- 
acter of the courses of study, the thoroughness of work done, the 
superiority of accommodations at lowest rates, and the high moral 
character of the community, make this the best place in the West for 
a collegiate course. 

Departments. — Preparatory, Teachers, Scientific, Classic, Busi- 
ness, Musical, Oratorical. 

Summer term begins April 6, 1880. 

Institute, July 6, 1880. 

Fall term begins August 31, 1880. 

If you contemplate taking a collegiate course, you will find it to 
your interest to correspond with the principals. 

For catalogue, or specimen copy of Western Educational Review, 
address, 

SANDERS & CUTLER, 

ASSOCIATE PRINCIPALS, 

FT. SCOTT, KANSAS. 



